


You Missed Me at the Start

by Dean_Wax



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Angel Wings, Angel/Demon Relationship, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Butch/Femme, Crossdressing, Cunnilingus, Death, Demons, F/F, Femslash, Guardian Angels, Hell, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Magic, Menstruation, Mindfuck, Murder, Mystery, Organized Crime, Poverty, Prostitution, Punishment, Sexual Repression, Temporary Amnesia, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 28,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29042790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dean_Wax/pseuds/Dean_Wax
Summary: There is a click as she opens her purse. I watch curiously as she rummages inside. She pulls out something and offers it to me, but it isn't money. "Here." A tampon.I take it. I need it. My fingernails are too blunt for the plastic; I tear it with my teeth and then shimmy my jeans off my hips."R-right here?" she stammers, looking around."Men piss in the street every day," I tell her gruffly.***Roksana doesn't remember her own name but that doesn't matter: the meat market is always the same. The demons like to play. She's been caught and resold six times now. This time, her own past has caught up with her, and it won't let go. It has a hand around a bidding paddle right now. Who is this demon who insists she knows here, and what did she do in life to earn herself this lot here in Hell? Memories only come in pieces. It makes her sick to look into those blood-red eyes. Why did it end up like this?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. The Market

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [But You Found Me in the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16549994) by [Dean_Wax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dean_Wax/pseuds/Dean_Wax). 



> It's my party and I'll do a lesbian retelling if I want to. If you thought Rasputin was angry, wait until you meet Roksana.

I could be a celebrity. Up on stage, blinded by spotlights, the wind of an industrial fan at my back. It is warm down here, underground. The seating area is not so well illuminated; there are strips of red lights embedded into the floor between the aisles that give off a dim, red glow just bright enough to make out the strange, craggy rock that was hollowed out to make this cavern. It’s difficult to distinguish members of the crowd except for their bidding paddles, numbered in red LEDs. I believe they stay in the shadows in order to hide their identities.  
  
I am not famous. I am damaged goods, you see; a bruised peach, if the peach was made of meat. The stars of the show are all the same; pretty, pale and perfect things in various stages of grief from the trials of their capture. They all have the same face, the and it is sad; the tears streaming down their cheeks often add to the lustre of the white silk and gossamer she has dressed us in. Although, ‘she’ is subjective; this glamourous auctioneer reminds me of an insect then a woman with the way she shrouds her face with a thick veil studded with black crystals. Like the witches mothers use to scare their daughters. Even more ominous is the hard, clacking sounds which come from beneath the huge, black skirt of her glittering ball gown. I don’t want to know what kind of legs she is hiding under there.   
  
In the smallest way, I am lucky; by the time I am dragged up to the stage, she scoffs and takes her leave. She doesn’t touch me. It is up to the moody assistants offload the likes of me who are left in the holding pen; the ones who don’t even have all of their teeth. Most of mine are intact; a few chips from fighting. I guess I’m lucky. My skin, not so much; they have made an art board out of my… playing, I suppose. That was what would he would have called it, yes. The last man who bought me; he liked to play. I still have the drawings carved into my arms and etched across my belly, circling the nipples on my breasts. The lines are faded and shiny now; puffy, in places. They are lost in so much else of me.   
  
I wonder if, looking up at me from their bejeweled sunglasses, their alien visors and too-high collars covering up their disfigurements, some of these creatures are surprised by me. Afraid, even. I should not have lasted as long as this. I don’t have a good attitude. The skin of my chin is still mottled by the bruise; the red of split lip complementing the bluish hue of my scalp beneath blond hair shaved back to stubble. Dark circles contrast my blue eyes. My nose has been broken. My fingers have been broken; my arms, my ribs, my toes. I can barely taste any more since one master took a burning iron rod to my tongue, but I can still remember the smell of blood.   
  
Which monster will buy me today? I give the faceless crowd a slow, unkind smile and that sends a bid trickling in. Fifty. Fifty what, I don’t know, but I know it’s a price that would barely justify feeding me to the dogs that roam the blistered earth above our heads. One hundred, a counter-bid from someone who cannot bear to see someone else get such a steal. Two fifty; three. Suddenly, the bid jumps to one thousand and my heart jolts. That is a bid from someone who is serious about owning me. I look up, searching the crowd. It sounded like a woman’s voice that called out but I cannot see her; she has already lowered her paddle. No one else bids against her. I’m not surprised. The assistant rushes through the wrap-up and bangs the gavel to finalise the sale, then they haul me back to the pens and put me in the blindfold again.   
  
The world turns to sensory putty; it cannot be put into any true order or orientation and it is pointless to try. They do this to make it difficult to escape; I could not even say how many steps there are between here and the cell I slept in. They won’t take me back there, anyway. Now that I have been bought again, I know what is coming. I am shoved to my knees and a sting in my arm sends me under.   
  
I wake up to the faint smell of smoke. The blindfold is still on me but my hands are no longer shackled. Stupid. I remove the blindfold immediately and sit up on the edge of the bed. Black sheets and grey stone against a black marble floor that stretches out in a huge, round circle. There is one door close by, but no windows. The walls of the chamber are lined with evenly spaced pillars and the gaps between them are all bricked up and shrouded by grey curtains. A dying fireplace gives the room just enough light to show that I am alone. I am wearing a pair of black silk lounge pants and a loose cotton singlet. My skin is clean. She must have washed and dressed me while I was still unconscious. I don’t like this show of kindness; I don’t trust simply because I am clean. There are plenty of cruel cunts who are clean.   
  
Normally, at this time I would sift through drawers and shelves to find something sharp, but there are none. The room is grand but bare; there is nothing but the bed and the fireplace. Why even bother having such a large space with nothing in it? Everything about this annoys me; it would have been better if I was still tied up and had no choice but to wait. I don’t like having having my hands free but nothing to do. It feels like a trap, or an insult, somehow. I’m still a prisoner here, no matter how comfortable she makes me.   
  
Just when I am considering whether or not the bedsheets would catch fire on the embers in the fireplace, the door opens and I spring to my feet. The woman who steps through the door could only ever be the mistress of this place. Not because she is dressed in finery; far from it. Her slate robe is tied sloppily, showing skin all the way down to her ribs, and her long, black hair is disheveled. I don't think a servant would show themselves in such a state. She wears pants like mine and when she steps forward I see that her pallid toes are capped with pointed, black nails. I take a swift step back at that. She really is a monster.   
  
She huffs a laugh at me, crimson eyes crinkling at the corners. Despite the mirth in them, my heart skips a beat when I see that where the whites of her eyes should be, there is only black.   
  
“You have been resold six times in as many months,” she tells me.   
  
The number has little meaning to me. I’ve been sold many times; the memories of them blur together and overlap so much that I doubt I could put them in order, but I know what it means when I end up back at the auction house. I can’t recall their faces but I can remember the screams. Playing. Perhaps they called it ‘playing’ because they thought they could be carefree with the act. It doesn’t take long before they make a mistake, and then I make it two, sometimes three days before a roaming slaver picks me up again. There’s not a lot of cover one can take in the badlands. It takes too long to move between the rocky outcrops on foot.   
  
As she gets closer I start to circle around the room, keeping my distance with careful footwork so as not to get backed against a wall. If she wants to touch me, she should have tied me up while I was knocked out. After a moment, she stops and her smile widens to show a set of menacing teeth in a dark purple maw. Suddenly, she is upon me. The movement is so fast I could have not stopped it if I tried. No wonder she does not bother with bondage; the hand around my throat is so tight that I can only breathe in a shallow wheeze.   
  
" I have missed you,” she coos. “Do you remember me?”   
  
I frown and look up at her with bleary eyes. It has been so long since I have spoken that the first attempt comes out as a rasp. The squeezing hand eases a fraction and I take a breath and try again. “No,” I wheeze.   
  
Black talons trace across my cheek before she cups my face and turns me to look over my shoulder. “Really?” she asks.   
  
“N-” I begin, but the sight on the wall stops me. A curtain between two of the pillars is gone; not raised or drawn back, just gone, and a mirror fills the space from floor to ceiling. The sight of my own reflection shocks me. It has been so long since I have looked in a mirror; not even washed my own face in a basin, they are always hosing me down like livestock but… my god, even the line of my nose has changed, flattened where I’m sure it was once straight. I open my mouth to say something but then my tongue is burning. One fat section of it is on fire even though my mouth is closed, and my eyes bulge and my lips blister as my feet kick out at the air; in confusion, in pain, oh god! How is she doing this?!   
  
“I wonder how far back we’ll have to go,” she murmurs, eyes meeting mine in the reflection.   
  


Far back? The rod; the glowing, metal rod that the last one took to my tongue. I curse without sound as I put together the pieces, thrashing in her iron-like grip. Yet just as quickly as the searing pain had come, it leaves me, and suddenly I am aware of the taste of my own teeth and spit again; subtle and yet worlds apart from truly tasting nothing at all. She’s undone it, somehow, with this mirror. I stare at it, transfixed, and her hand leaves my throat and both arms wrap around my chest, her chin settling into the crook of my shoulder to enjoy the show.  
  


The arms, next. The symbols and pictures they cut into the skin. I can remember the tip of the blade clearly as it traces the lines of my scars in reverse, opening up old wounds. I hiss at the sting and close my eyes, shaking my head. The pain is nothing compared to the rod but it is somehow worse, lingering now; the trace of the invisible knife point has stopped but I can still feel the blood dripping down my arms.   
  


“Open your eyes,” the instructions come to my ear, the brush of skin on skin made perverse by the way it is gentle, so gentle compared to how she holds me so tightly now.   
  


“Witch!” I snarl, my blue eyes open. The knife starts again, relentless, uncaring of how I grit my teeth or squirm. Those wounds too, one by one; they close up again and leave nothing but smooth skin behind. Both arms, then my belly and my chest, the wounds opening up regardless of whether or not his arms are in the way. The blood makes crimson targets on my shirt like a bad joke. She’s rewinding my injuries somehow; the trick is in the mirror. I have to keep looking. Even though I know what is coming next, I find it difficult to look away.  
  


My breathing quickens as I brace myself for it, building up adrenalin as though it were a bar fight. It was like a bar fight when I took a punch to the nose. When I was trying to get away, I think. The _crunch_ of bone fills the room and I bark out a scream, snarling teeth framed by dripping red. As bad as it feels, as much as I hate her, the deep breaths I take feel sweet as the ridge of bone pushes back out into place, strong and straight again. I bite back a whine as my hands tremble, fingers bending back and straightening into place again. The prick had done them one by one.   
  


“I could have made it faster,” she mutters, “I just didn’t want you to scream again.” Her grip doesn’t let me free. I won’t close my eyes again; I won’t, fuck her! Whatever the magic is, I don’t know. I can take it. I’ve taken it all before, haven’t I? Every cut, whip and bruise. The minutes drag on and my face shifts and swells and changes colours like melted plastic bubbling under a flame. Blood comes and goes and turns me slippery; in the end she has me hooked under the arms like she is waiting for a friend to come and punch me in the kidneys. In the end, I am unharmed, albeit streaked with blood. In some ways I don’t fully recognise myself, now. Is this how I looked before I was taken? Skin intact and barely scarred, no bruises? I could almost be handsome, in a way. I wonder if I took a good price at the market, the first time. I don’t remember the first time.  
  


She still hasn’t let me go. I grunt and struggle just once or twice, trying to shake her off now that the mirror is done. The way she keeps holding me tightly, eyes fixed intently on the mirror… my heart sinks as I realise she is waiting for something.   
  


“It’s coming,” she whispers.  
  


I barely register the words before like a shot, something pierces my chest all sound leaves me. I have been stabbed before, but never like this. Through muscle, between bone - I feel the heat of the exit wound at the back of my shoulder and it is then I managed to draw in a long and stuttered gasp. No blood, this time; the invisible instrument of torture keeps it in place, I think. Eyes watering, I grimace as I know what’s coming but it doesn’t stop the scream ripping from my lips as it is pulled _out,_ in reverse; perhaps a spear, but when have I ever seen a spear? Breathing haggardly, my head slumps forward as I struggle to keep my gaze locked on my own reflection. My only reprieve is that it will be over soon, it will heal and go away as long as I keep looking. I feel my flesh join together again at my back, the pinch moving forward through my chest. So close, so close when she claps a hand over my eyes.   
  


I do scream, then; obscenities. Snarling. I try to thrash and bite at the air but I am too weak, and it makes my chest ache. I yelp as she clamps her other hand over the bleeding hole. When her hands shift enough for me to crack one eye open, I see the mirror is covered by the curtain again, as if she had someone else close it for her. Yelling, I kick out with my feet, trying to drag the cloth aside, but she is already hauling me back towards the bed.  
  


“You’ll understand,” she tells me, over and over again. “You’ll understand; you’ll see.”  
  


“Let me see!” I roar, snarling as I am spun around and shoved, back-first onto the bed. I try to push myself up but she is already on top of me, pressing her palm down over the wound again. When I try to grab her throat, she catches my wrist; she is too fast for me. The look in her bright red eyes is crazy. From this angle, I see too much of her big, gleaming teeth.   
  


“You won’t leave me again,” she says. “Roksana.”   
  


She speaks the name with such conviction. It is meaningless to me. Yet she reeks of familiarity. I don’t know who she is! If I did, I would curse her, I would rip her hair from her scalp and… and…  
  


My threats, unspoken, are short-lived before black creeps in around the edges of my vision. I pass out again.  
  
  
I don’t know who this crazy bitch is.


	2. Blue Lines

The landscape is alien here; the ground is burnt and mottled, almost scabbed. The unidentifiable badlands stretch out for miles, wavering in the mirage of a sweltering heat. Yet I feel cold and helpless; I can barely see for the tears. I stare into the face of a beautiful man, unblemished and utterly still. Skin pale like mine, hair blond like mine; blood caked on his lips. He could be sleeping but I know he is not. A black, straight shape sticks out of his neck and the sight makes me afraid because I know that it will happen to me, too.   
  
It hurts; oh God, it hurts. The only sound I can hear is my own sniveling and that feels me with a panic I cannot describe. Am I going to die?   
  
There is a sound, like a heartbeat. It is fast, steady and light. My eyes open.   
  
I am on the bed again, but my feet face towards the headboard. My wrists are shackled together on my stomach as though I am laid out for a wake. Sitting up with a grimace, I twist and see a long, thick chain snaking off the bed, across the tiles and then all the way up to a hook in the ceiling at the centre of the room. A curious choice.   
  
My shoulder is wrapped in gauze. Even though it hurts to move, I get up and test the length of the chain. With my arms pulled high above my head, my toes can just graze the fabric of the curtain that cloaks the mirror on the wall. My shoulder throbs in protest as I try to kick up the fabric enough to get a glimpse of my reflection. It’s no use; she has planned the length of this chain very carefully. I retreat to the centre of the room where the chain has enough slack to hang myself, if I wanted. She must know that I won’t. Why would my body have been so battered if I was so inclined to take my own life?   
  
I didn’t expect being owned to be this boring. I don’t sleep; unconsciousness is not the same thing. My only choices are to sit and wait, lie and wait or stand and wait. I know I complain a lot but even now I would prefer if there were only one option, one thing to focus on. I choose to lie and wait in the middle of the room, staring up at the hook; the ache of the stone against my back helps me focus in a better way than the throbbing in my shoulder.   
  
The door opens and my eyes flick towards her. Her hair is half tied up this time, and now her robe is ivory. She carries with her a small, lacquered bowl brimming with cherries. Her lips curl into a smile and she eats one as she stands over me.   
  
“You don’t eat any more, do you? Not even for pleasure,” she remarks, staring thoughtfully for a moment before she sinks to her knees and sets the bowl beside my head. Grabbing my chin, she leans down and kisses me.   
  
I am overwhelmed by a sudden sweetness as her tongue pushes inside my mouth. Coughing, the spasm pulls at the wound on my chest and I struggle to push her away with the nothing but the threat of my blunt teeth which slide off her slippery tongue without purchase.   
  
She chuckles and pulls away at her own leisure, dangling a cherry above my lips by the stem. I look away with a scowl. I am not interested. She scoffs, then, but she is still smiling even as she places a palm over the gauze and applies a steady pressure.   
  
“I remember when you were this weak,” she recalls with a strange fondness in her eyes. “But you were never this  _ dispassionate _ . I know you’re hiding in there.”   
  
Sniffing, I try to use my feet to slide my body away from her on the tiles but she pins me in place.   
  
“Every man who ever bought you is dead,” she says.   
  
Yes. I smile before I can stop it, and it seems to please her.   
  
“There it is,” she croons, reaching out to trace the curve with one fingertip. “Just a glimmer.” The action causes the smile to drop from my face and I put my guard up again. “What a hollow shell you have become,” she chuckles. “It is a miracle any part of you is left at all.”   
  
Something about the brightness in her eyes grates on me. I don’t remember any of the cunts who bought me pretending to care about me like this. Her motive isn’t clear. If all this is because she knew me, then what was I to her? I don’t bother asking because whatever the answer might be, I won't buy it. If she really knew me, she would not try to keep me contained like this. I  _ need  _ to keep working. I need to… to…   
  


Her warm palms close over mine and I spasm, squirming on the tiles as I try to push away. She makes a sneering sound at me, some language I don’t know, and hauls me up onto my knees. I grimace and try unsuccessfully to avoid the pits of those burning-coal eyes.    
  


“Don’t be such a baby,” she scolds me. It catches me off guard.   
  


“Fuck you!” I snap. “You make me bleed, you shackle me… why would I want you close, huh?”   
  


She clicks her tongue, reaching out for my wrists. I pull away again and she yanks me closer with a warning snarl before opening the cuffs. “Look,” she says gruffly, then corrects herself. “ _ Feel _ .” She pulls me to sit upright and brings both of my hands up over her shoulders.   
  
I am not sure what to expect. Part of me just wants to push her away or maybe wring my hands around her neck. The ache in my chest reminds me of how weak I am in this moment, so I feel, instead. Cautiously pushing against the rumpled silk I feel horns, or perhaps stumps of bone set into her shoulder blades, curving into points. My palms slide past them, feeling nothing more than smooth flesh underneath the fabric, yet I am suddenly overcome by a sense of urgent unease. Rubbing my hands over it again in a frantic embrace, I pull back and spin her around with a grimace, numb to the ache in my chest caused by my actions.   
  
Her eyes make half moons as she lets me pull the robe down her torso, exposing her back. The horns are pointed and as black as her hair but they aren’t what calls to me. Sprawling across the pallid skin are two immense wings tattooed in old, blue ink. The lines are smudged and shaky in places but they invoke a fury in me that makes my heart pound fast and shallow; a rush greater than any murder. I want to jam my fingers into the flesh and rip it back like bad carpet. I can imagine the act so vividly that it startles me.   
  
“You.” The word is a weak, quiet curse and I am not sure how to follow it.   
  
She is grinning. “Do you like them?” she asks, letting the robe slip from her arms. “They are so  _ funny _ . The hubris of it. The absolute gall. Isn’t it hysterical?”   
  
My head hurts. It is a tight, sharp tension at the back of my skull. Grimacing, I screw my eyes shut as I fight the urge to maul her. I can’t. My fingertips are too blunt. I would never survive the retaliation. The pain spreads to the centre of my chest and I let out a furious howl that shifts in pitch as my wounded shoulder joins the fray. As I draw breath, I register her raucous laughter ringing around the room.   
  
“Yes!” she cheers, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “Yes, I remember that sound! What else makes you angry, I wonder? Roksana.”   
  
That name again. “ _ What? _ ” I snarl.   
  
Her lips are tinted by cherry juice as she leans forward with a smirk. “I’m only just getting started.”


	3. The Choosing Game

My wound is healing quickly, as my wounds always do. She changes the bandages regularly but I still have to wonder if this monster is a fool. She has become obsessed with asking me to choose things, from set of two, three, or four; and always, always food. It is annoying. I don’t know what she hopes to accomplish. I don’t need to eat. I have a purpose above eating, if I could only remember what it is.   
  
“Good morning,” she chimes, pushing through the door with a familiar tray in hand.   
  
The chains sway softly as I turn my head to look at her. My hands are free now; the shackles have been replaced with a metal collar. Honestly, I prefer it. I am not so proud that a thing like this would bother me. I can use my hands now, but I still can’t reach the curtain.   
  
“Is it morning?” I drawl. I have no way of knowing.   
  
“It is,” she simpers as he sets down the tray. Today’s robe is golden yellow, and her hair is in a loose braid. Crouching down, she pushes the tray towards me as she always does. This may be the sixth or seventh time. “Pick something,” she says.   
  
I glower at a spot on the wall before I finally lower my gaze to the tray with contempt. An apple, a slice of bread, some kind of candy bar. I want it to end. With a huff, I snatch up the fourth option, a yellow bell pepper, and turn it upside down in my hands. I take an angry bite out of the base and chew with resent in my eyes. I don’t feel any different but there is a curse on the tip of my tongue that I don’t quite know how to say. The pinched, hostile sentiment behind it lingers in my mind for a moment and I hope that she can feel it.   
  
She doesn’t.   
  
“Good,” she nods, pleased. She collects the tray as she gets up and heads back to the door. “Wait here.”   
  
I am suspicious, yet I have no choice but to wait. At least the bell pepper gives me something to do. Biting into the yellow flesh, I methodically work my way around the cluster of seeds attached to the stem on the inside. She returns just as I set down the remains on the floor, bringing with her a bundle of velvet cloth which clangs on the tiles as she sets it down.   
  
I can hardly believe my eyes when she unrolls the fabric and pulls out the first item. A pistol. I want to laugh; there is a strange spasm in my chest when I watch her lay it out on the tiles. What a stupid weapon; it is probably not even loaded. No matter what the other objects are, I am confident it is the worst of the lot.   
  
My expression changes when she produces a knife from the cloth. That, I could use. If nothing else, I could pay her back for stabbing me. I’ve done much worse with less. It is an effort to keep from lunging for it while she is still paying close attention. I could carve those markings right off her back, although I might have to slit her throat first. Yes.   
  
She pulls out the largest item in the set and I pause. It is a blunt object; a cheap, metal baseball bat. As far as my intentions go, the choice is perhaps even worse than the gun, especially when I consider the state of my shoulder. Yet I can’t take my eyes off of it, from the scratched aluminum to the grubby rubber tape on the handle. It seems so familiar that I almost feel afraid.   
  


_ Take the knife. _ _   
  
_

“Pick one,” she invites me sweetly.   
  


_ Take the knife! _ _   
  
_

I hesitate. Why? The choice is so obvious. Take the knife and kill her. My bondage is of no concern to me. Once I have healed enough, I can climb the chain and unhook myself. It would be easy. The choice should be easy. And yet…   
  


I want to touch it. The mere thought that it could be taken away if I don’t take it now is intolerable to me. It sends my heartbeat racing as I raise up onto my hands and knees. The knife is just two feet away from me. Wincing, I reach out and snatch up the rubber handle. The weight of the bat feels at home in my hand and I let out a roar as I swing it at her face. The pain in my chest is worth it just to hear the metallic ring as it connects with that sculpted cheekbone.   
  


The force of the blow makes her fall on her side and I leap after her on all fours like some kind of feral animal. I already have the bat hooked under her chin when I realise her body is slack. She's letting me do this.    
  


“What are you doing?” I demand. “I could kill you!”   
  


“You won’t kill me.” Even her wheeze has an unnerving confidence.   
  


Tightening my grip on both ends of the bat, I yank her head back higher but she still offers no resistance. Fine. Fine! Sneering, I reach beside us and take up the knife I should have chosen. Ramming the end of the bat between her shoulder blades, I forced her back down onto the tiles and shift back far enough to strip the robe from her shoulders. We will see how confident she is when I cut those tattoos right out of her skin.   
  


I exhale. Bare skin. No trace of ink. How?!   
  


She laughs at me; a quiet, smug sound. “You didn’t think they were real, did you?” She fixes me with one red, crinkled eye and half a smile as she rests her bruised cheek on the coolness of the tile. “Why would I need a tattoo?”   
  


She shifts beneath me; not her body, but the horns protruding from her shoulder blades. They push out from her back, growing into structures so immense that each one could easily wrap around her own body.   
  


Scrambling backwards, I watch as she slowly gets to her feet and turns to face me. The spiked appendages fan out behind her like black, skeletal wings. Devoid of feathers, the bones drag across the ground with a scraping sound that almost threatens to cause sparks, like flint. She folds them behind her back and stands over me, looking no less regal despite her injury.   
  


“It’s not possible,” I whimper.   
  


“It is,” she informs me serenely, not without some amusement. She reaches down to cup my cheek, drumming her pointed fingernails along my jawline.   
  


It is only a split second later I notice the syringe in her other hand. I jerk away but it is too late; the sting in my neck is followed by a slow and fuzzy feeling that makes my eyes close.


	4. Unfamiliar Faces

She left the bat for me. I think the eating has made me tired; even after I awake from the drug, I drift back to sleep, curled around the bat with the handle resting against my forehead. It feels strange, to sleep again. I catch glimpses of shapes in my dreams; gently glowing balls of colour and hanging crystals which glitter like stars. Something about their beauty upsets me and I awake with a frown.   
  


I am unchained, now, but it does not make any difference. The door is solid wood and always locked, and the curtain has become blocked by impassable metal bars which stretch from the floor to the ceiling. I don’t know how she made them appear. After what I have already seen, anything could be possible.   
  


I open my eyes. I hadn't heard her come in; it must have been when I was sleeping. Leaning up on one elbow, I find her sitting on the bed beside me with her hair in loose waves. After another moment, I blanch away from her hand.   
  


“Three… maybe four men before you?” I shrug as I sit up. “It all blurs together.”   
  


“Do you remember  _ why  _ you killed them?”   
  


“They deserved it,” I answer without missing a beat. It is as simple as day or night. “They all had chances; they lost them when they bought me and showed themselves to be sinners.”   
  


“ _ Sinners _ ,” she repeats the word keenly. “An interesting choice of words for a murderer.”   
  


Annoying. I click my tongue. “I never said I was clean,” I sneer. “No one is. Not even you, despite your…  _ hrm _ .” I trail off with a wrinkle in my nose.   
  


“Yes?” she presses me, eyebrows raised.   
  


“Why do you have wings?” I ask bluntly.   
  


“Because I died,” she drawls, leaning back on her hands. “It happens to everyone.”   
  


“Wings are for angels. You don’t seem so holy to me.” I narrow my eyes suspiciously.   
  


She gives a bitter chuckle. “And your ‘holy’ does not seem ‘holy’ to me. Not everything is so black and white, Roksana.”   
  


Roksana. “Is that my name?” I ask. The word feels foggy to me. “It doesn’t feel like it.”   
  


“It will come back in time,” she explains, watching me carefully with hooded eyes. “I am not going to give it away.”   
  


Of course she isn’t. Huffing, I let myself fall back to the bed. “If you care so much about my memories, why don’t you just  _ tell  _ me?” I complain.   
  


“Because you would not believe me even if I did,” she scoffs, standing up and brushing her hair behind one ear. "You were too ridiculous."   
  


As she circles around the bed, I follow her gaze and find her staring at the iron bars.   
  


“This isn’t working,” she muses aloud with a sigh. “I had hoped that letting the shoulder wound linger would help you remember, but it seems I will have to try something different.”   
  


I sit up keenly, eyes alert. “What is behind the bars?”   
  


“What is behind the  _ curtain _ ,” she corrects me idly, strolling over and gripping two bars in her hands. She leans against them with a thoughtful sigh, looking at me over her shoulder. “The real question is, do you think you are ready?”   
  


Pushing off the bed, I approach the bars, careful to keep a few feet away from her as I reach out to touch the metal. I blink and suddenly they are no longer there; my fingers close into a fist in the air. Glancing towards her, I see her backing away with a sly smirk, sticking her hands in the pockets of her silky pants.   
  


Peering at the curtain, I step closer with an air of trepidation. I’ve spent so many hours stuck in this room just staring at it that I don’t know what to expect. At times it seems like shadows shift behind the cloth, like an angry beast pacing back and forth at the barrier. Yet why should I be afraid? With everything that has already happened to me, there is nothing that could be behind this curtain that I couldn’t handle. Reaching out, I push the dark fabric aside to see what it hides.   
  


A gentle puff of air pushes out of me. It’s still so shocking to see myself in a mirror now. I press my palm to the glass and my own reflection stares back at me, incredulous at all the fuss. My eyes are blue. I see my hair has grown longer during my time here, the platinum crop shining almost white against my dark surroundings. The wound in my chest has healed down to a small, round scab near my shoulder.   
  


Curious... I feel as though there should still be more scars and marks across my body. I take my hand away from the glass and turn my palms over in front of me thoughtfully. Hadn’t I worked, before? My hands are so smooth now but I remember digging. I remember the sound of shifting gravel and dirt so clearly. As I stare back at my face, nothing else seems to happen.   
  


“Shouldn’t I be… hm, rewinding?” I wave a hand in the air as I search for a word, glancing back at the demon.

“There’s nothing left to rewind,” she sighs, sitting down on the bed and leaning back on her hands. “I can only do so much. I’m not a god.”

“But you are holy,” I say snidely.

She doesn’t like that. “I am not. Holy,” she glowers. 

I smirk, but the joy is short-lived as I turn back to the mirror. “What am I supposed to be doing, then?” I sigh.

“Look,” she tells me. I see her reflection by my shoulder. “Try to get to know yourself again, Roksana. The mirror can’t take you back to before you came here, but people here can shape themselves… if they remember how to. Most just do it subconsciously.”

It sounds like shit to me. I can’t help but jeer. “What, so I give myself nose job?”

“Do you even recognise yourself?” she quips back coolly.   
  


“...No,” I admit, peering back at my reflection. This face feels wrong, somehow: too smooth, too pretty. I don't like the way my hair is glowing; it's a stupid thing. But then how am I supposed to look? I don’t understand how I am supposed to spot the difference. Calloused hands? Maybe. But what else? I expected the curtain to hold so many answers… now all I have are more questions. Why doesn’t the bitch just give me a clue? Grunting in frustration, I turn around and find the bed empty. She's gone again. Swearing, I look back to the glass. There is nothing else to do. 


	5. Wings

I spend most of my time kneeling in front of the mirror. If this fascination is vanity, I do not care. My face changes in little glimmers that I can catch if I stare closely enough. My eyes seem older, somehow, and there is a faded scar that notches into my low, straight brow. Another two of my teeth are chipped, now; or maybe I’m just going insane. If you leave a parrot alone with a mirror, it can go mad. That could be happening to me.   
  


My shoulder has healed down to a round, red weal. There is another mark that I can make out clearly now that the etchings of the dead men have faded away. In the centre of my chest, slightly to the left, the skin is almost silvery where the scar tissue stretches across it. It doesn’t go away no matter how long I wait. It must be important. I don’t remember how I got it, but something about it reminds me of stars.   
  


“Roksana.”   
  


I lift my head when a hand touches my shoulder. My eyes had slipped out of focus; I hadn’t seen her come behind me. Blinking, I take in her reflection. Her hair is long and straight, and she is actually wearing a bra today. Something else is different, though; her pants are tighter, made of something leathery, and her navel is pierced with a short, silver chain set with three white crystals, evenly spaced. I gasp when I see it, twisting round to see it in the flesh, but there is nothing there. Just bare skin and black silk pants hanging loosely from her hips.   
  


A pang of loss hits me hard and I stifle a sob, closing my eyes and pressing my eye socket over the patch of pale, soft skin as though that might make them appear. Why did they seem so familiar to me? It hurts that they are gone. Gritting my teeth, I clutch at her sides as though they might provide answers but I know that she will give me none.   
  


“I… brought food,” she says. Her tone is hollow as she lifts a green plastic bag. The contents thud softly as she lets it drop to the floor and a single orange rolls across the tiles. She places one hand on the back of my head, watching me without words for a moment before she reaches under my arms.   
  


“Get up,” she coaxes me with a sad smile, drawing me close. “What did you see?”   
  


“Stars,” I whisper truthfully. “And crystals that are not for me.” It’s true; I can feel it in my teeth. My forehead hurts from frowning.   
  


“You remember that?” she huffs out a laugh. “I thought you hated them.”   
  


This pull of intimacy is frightening. “Hated what?” I implore her. “Who are you?”   
  


“I’ve never seen you so tender,” she whispers with awe, and I want to cry. She touches my cheek as the first spasm of grief hits me, stilling the quake with the warmth of her hand.   
  


Even now, in the pit of me, something complains. I don’t… want. It is a weakness. I hear the sound of my own breathing as she presses her lips to the shell of my ear, watching our reflections in the mirror. Her touch is warm when she traces curves down my back.   
  


My eyes open with a chill in my chest as I recognise the shapes drawn onto my skin by her fingertip. Looking over my shoulder, I see the blue ink spread across my skin just as the scars had shown themselves to me. The betrayal is like a punch to the guts and I stagger backwards with a strangled grunt.   
  


“You!” I accuse, clutching a hand across my stomach and baring my teeth.

“No,” she says, face still and serious. “I did not do this to you. You chose to.”   
  


My head hurts. It hurts! A pressure against the bones; something somewhere is ringing so faintly it barely registers but I can always hear it. I jam a thumb between my eyebrows and press hard to no avail. Crying out, I thrash and stumble until I feel the cool surface of the glass connect with my temple. I slump against the mirror with a whimper and sink to my knees. To think that the wings had always been a part of me. To think that she would laugh at them, even when she had wings of her own!   
  


I know I should open my eyes, but I don’t. I just want to be alone. It was easier when all I had was rage.


	6. Breaking Through

The paint peels off the walls. Something about the atmosphere here - the muck, the mould, the mattress on the floor - makes me feel heavy and empty all at once. I am holding an old coffee can. The label is gone and the lid is warped. There is nothing inside it. I have been robbed. It makes a weak sound as I hurl it against the wall.   
  


"You think I don't clean?” An old, pinched voice scolds me. The accent is thick. "Stupid girl. Stealing now? Fucking?!" 

"I am not fucking!" I snarl, whirling around and hurling the empty coffee can at the wall. It falls to the floor with a clatter and I am caught off guard by the sight of her, the demon, sitting at a grubby kitchen table. Her long, dark hair hangs lank over her face but I can see her lips moving when the wrong voice comes out.   
  


“You cut your hair for this? The devil bitch?”   
  


I step backward. She seems fuzzy, somehow, wrong; she doesn't speak like this. I do not think it is really her; she is sitting where someone else should be. The flowers on her dress are faded and her hands are red and ruddy. They roam blind over the table, grabbing and folding objects I can't see.

"Be a whore if you want, I can only do so much to stop you," she keeps working through her miserable muttering. "You won't come church, you won't meet good boys… but you will be contributing to household, even if I have to take it from you." 

My face burns, my anger twisting and coiling inside me, setting my teeth on edge. Pissed as I am, I don’t feel surprised. I wouldn't have hidden it if I didn't see this coming. This betrayal. And I am stuck there, silent, seething. There are no words that will get me what I want, I know this.    
  


The worst part is when she acts like it is nothing. "Come fold with me," she says. Fold what? Fold nothing! I can’t take any more of this shit.   
  


I ball my hands into fists and storm towards the door, only to find it already open, just a crack. I am caught off guard by a small flash of red. The black gloss of a shoe. I throw the door open without hesitation, nothing but the urgency of the chase in my head, accompanied by the scuffing sound of footsteps. Crossing the threshold, I come face to face with cheap, plasterboard wall. Grunting, I turn back and find another wall there, too. Another wall. Another wall. I’m boxed in. I don’t want to be. I want to be--   
  


_ Ugh _ _   
  
_

I want to be out. Grey dust chafes my knuckles but I just punch harder. I want to be out. I--   
  


I blink and for a fleeting moment all I see is a small, red figure in the distance of a black void. Time stops. My heartbeat slows. When I open my eyes again I am staring at a sink that is far too clean for the likes of me. The immaculate porcelain seems to repel my blood, which turns orange as running water carries it towards the drain. A broken nose; now, this is a feeling I know. Hunched over the basin, I grit my teeth and raised my hands push the cartilage back into place with a crunching  _ pop _ . Cursing, I double over and pound my fists on the glossy bathroom counter, taking deep breaths.   
  


When I finally straighten up to check my reflection in the mirror, I see her leaning against the door frame, watching me. Younger, maybe. Her voice matches her body now. The most noticeable difference is her eyes. Not red anymore. Brown.   
  


“I can get you work, you know,” she says.   
  


The snort makes my face throb but I laugh anyway because it is funny. Me, working! Especially at a place like... like what? I can't remember but I know it is no place for me.   
  


“Not like that.” she clarifies, stepping closer. “Cleaning, maybe. Laundry. It would still pay much more than vegetable scraps.”   
  


I lower my eyes and spit into the sink. If I look at her closely, I’m not sure I’ll like what I see. I can’t smell shit with my nose swollen like this but I can taste a hint of perfume on the air at the back of my tongue.   
  


“It is fine,” I say finally. “I don’t need it.”   
  


She places a hand on my arm. “You do.”   
  


Grunting, I turn away. The fingers leave my flesh but their feeling lingers, creating a strange feeling of disconnection that I try to rub away with a towel.   
  


She's not right. I don’t want to say ‘wrong’ but she is not right, either. I don’t want the work; not from her. I don’t want to... be. What is it, indebted to her? Kept? Maybe. Maybe I am afraid that the easy life she could provide me would turn me soft. It’s not… time, for that, yet. Not yet. “I don’t.” I grind out the words with frustration.   
  


Another hand on my arm. A wash cloth. It is warm here. I open my eyes to another room, surrounded by the same black tile I have seen for weeks now. I am sitting in a bath and I gasp and open my eyes fully when I feel her body flush against my back.   
  


“Are you awake?” she asks in a gentle murmur by my ear. Water trickles from the cloth as she changes hands and wipes my other arm.   
  


I flinch because the teasing still stings. Does she really want to help me, or am I just an amusement to her? Does she understand how much I must have believed in such a thing to get it tattooed on my skin? Even now, I feel the wings behind me as though the ink has a weight. It's important, I know it. I know it is.   
  


“You’re angry,” she observes.   
  


“No,” I huff. My eyelids feel heavy. “Not angry.”   
  


“Hurt?”   
  


I don’t answer. When her graceful arms cross over my chest, I am torn between the urge to pull away and the urge to shrink back against her where it feels safe.   
  


“I could let it stay like this… but I won’t,” she says gently.   
  


That sounds like a bad omen. “Won’t you?” I ask.   
  


“No, I won’t,” she promises, holding me close.   
  


She is gentle. She bathes me. Yet I remember the ache in my skull; the pain in my chest. It is hard to keep the urgency out of my voice even though my words are quiet. “What will you do?”   
  


“You will see.”   
  


I tremble. I am not sure if I want to see.   
  


“I want you to know that I do it all for you, Roksana,” she explains solemnly. “Even when it does not seem like it. Maybe... it is a little for myself, too, but it is always for you.”   
  


The words make me forget to breathe. It comes back a moment later, the exhale just as shaky as the gasp that follows.   
  


“ _ Shhh _ ,” she soothes. “I’ve got you. Go back to sleep. Take as long as you need.”   
  


What choice do I have? I close my eyes.


	7. The Need to Eat

I wake up next to a body. Breathing; alive. These sheets are white. The red glow of the alarm clock on the bedside table reads 2:03AM and I don’t know if I am in a dream again. Reaching out, I brush long strands of dark hair aside to examine the pale back slowly rising and falling in front of me. Black horns. Perhaps I am not dreaming.   
  


She stirs, then stills. Peering at her in the dim light, I sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes. A faint glow is coming from the bedroom door, which opens out into an apartment where everything looks far too expensive for me. My bare toes sink into plush cream carpet as I venture out, passing my eyes over a large, flat-screen TV with something close to contempt. People live like this. It’s almost sickening. And yet... as alien as every leather sofa and brushed chrome surface seems, this place still feels familiar.   
  


I tread lightly into the kitchen (marble tiles; the same as the room I was held in) and open the fridge to find a cardboard box in checkered white and green. Pizza for me. I know this. She only ever eats one slice, right? At least, only one slice is missing when I lift the lid. Just the sight of it sends a pang of hunger through me. I had forgotten what that could feel like. Before I was just empty, but without the  _ need _ .   
  


I devour as much as my shrunken stomach lets me, illuminated by the white light of the fridge before I push the box back inside and shut the door. I wash the grease and crumbs from my hands in the sink and then take a drink straight from the faucet.   
  


Finally feeling full for the first time since I can remember, my ears register a faint hum that fills the otherwise silent space of the apartment. The fridge, I guess. It is comforting. Stepping back out into the main living space, I head towards the front door and pause when I notice a familiar handle sticking out of the umbrella stand beside it. The baseball bat. I pull it out without a second thought, testing my grip on the rubbed handle before I swing it up to rest across the breadth of my shoulders.   
  


Something about this door feels wrong but I can’t put my finger on it. Tilting my head to one side, I frown at it with the lurking feeling that people may break through at any moment, coming for me. Locks; yes. That’s what it needs. Didn’t there used to be three? Two keys and a deadbolt.   
  


“What are you staring at?” The question comes from the direction of the bedroom.   
  


I glance her way. “The deadbolt is missing.”   
  


She frowns and steps closer with an unsteady gait. She is wearing a short singlet and a little skirt-shorts thing, both made out of the same black, flimsy lace material. I realise now that I am naked. No matter. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the door.   
  


“You’re right,” she muses, her head lolling to one side as she reaches the door. “I guess I just didn’t bother. It’s… not that important, now.” Snickering, she pulls it open, standing aside so I can see.   
  


There is no hallway; just the room where she was holding me. Bed, mirror, ceiling hook. It seems even emptier now that I am not in it. The door looked so different from the other side.   
  


“You’ve been living here, all this time?” Taking the bat off my shoulders, I hold it loosely by my side.    
  


“Yes.”   
  


“How?” I frown. If I remember this place from before, how could it be here now?   
  


“Everyone makes their own things here,” she shrugs, shutting the door. “Some of them don't even realise it. I just figured out how to make my experience a little more comfortable.” she grins.   
  


“Where are we?” I ask.   
  


“Home,” she says, the smile quickly fading from her face.   
  


“No,” I disagree immediately, remembering the mattress on the ground. “No, I don’t belong here. I didn’t live here.”   
  


“I see you haven’t changed,” she clicks her tongue, pushing past me as she staggers to the kitchen. Hopping up to sit on the counter, she grabs a bottle with a red label and unscrews the lid. I watch as she takes a deep swig before carrying on, waving her hand around as she speaks. “You  _ do _ belong here,” she urges me. “You just didn’t  _ live  _ here. I must have asked you a thousand times. But no; no, no, no; it is too good for you. You would rather sleep with rats than stay with me.”   
  


“Fuck you,” I scowl. It feels natural. “You don’t know me.”   
  


“Oh, but I do know you, Roksana,” she jeers in a low tone, leaning forward. “Perhaps right now I even know you better than yourself. How much do you remember, eh?”   
  


Pizza. Red and blue lights. Loud music with bass that thrums out into the alleyways.   
  


“Give me a name from before,” she challenges. “One name that isn’t your own. Tell me.”   
  


A name. A name… “Vasily.”   
  


A single huff of air pushes out of her so forcefully that it jostles her whole body. Eyes wide and mouth agape, she stares at me as she sets the bottle down on the counter with a heavy  _ thunk _ . “Vasily?” she repeats with bared teeth, pushing herself off the counter. “ _ Vasily _ ? You remember that piece of shit before me?!”   
  


I grit my teeth and use the bat to stop her hands before they reach me. Wrestling with her up close, I can smell the vodka on her breath. She must have been drinking before she went to sleep. It has made her movements slower; with a grunt I heave her to the side and send her falling back onto the nearest sofa. “You’re drunk,” I grimace, pointing the blunt end of the bat at her throat.   
  


“You’d be drunk too, if you were me,” she sneers. With a little spit of air she looks down at the ground. “Vasily…”   
  


The sight of her sulking like this makes me wrinkle my nose and I feel tired and heavy again. “I am going back to bed,” I grouse, taking the bat with me as I stalk back towards the bedroom. “Fucking eat something before you join me, eh? Stupid...” Muttering darkly to myself, I crawl back under the covers. I can’t tell if I hear crying or laughter just before I pass out.


	8. Memories in Smoke

Her cigarettes are scented. The smoke is cloying and somehow sweet. The number of vices she has is stupid to me; it is a miracle that she seems to be so wealthy.   
  


“You’re wasting money, you know.”   
  


“As if that matters now,” she chuckles, tapping ash into a crystal bowl. Her wings are out as if to remind me they are there, the black structures forming a cage that frames her. We are sitting on the floor of her balcony, barefoot, in our underwear. Mine are plain and cotton; hers, lacy. It is night again; too dark to seek much of the craggy hellscape far, far below. This whole building hangs suspended in the air, I think, but who knows how. She just shrugged when I asked.

“Why bother, then?” I scoff even as I reach out to take one and light up. “These things will kill you.”   
  


She scoffs in turn as she watches me take a drag. “Asshole.”   
  


It’s hard to stop my lips from matching the curve of her smile as I push out a plume of smoke that smells like cloves. It was a hollow platitude, after all. We’re both dead. The thought occurs to me casually as I lean my head back against the balcony railing. “How did you die?” I ask.   
  


Her smile changes. I catch a flash of teeth before the expression fades completely and she looks away, pressing the cigarette to her lips. “... It was quick,” she says finally, tendrils of smoke chasing her words.   
  


“So you won’t tell me?”   
  


“No.”   
  


“So you  _ will _ tell me?” I grin.   
  


“Eat shit,” she smiles.   
  


Perhaps it is better this way. Stubbing out my cigarette in the overpriced ashtray, I turn and push myself up onto my knees to peer down to the eerie landscape far, far below. A faint, red glow shines through from cracks in the ground; from this high up, they almost look like veins. The craggy patchwork continues on for as far as the eye can see. I don’t care for it much, but up above… it takes my breath away every time I turn my face up to the heavens. A kaleidoscope of chaos; stars and space matter swirling in mysterious rhythms on an infinite canvas. Occasional ribbons of coloured light that snake across the inky backdrop, almost like an oil slick on the surface of dark water.   
  


It reminds me… “Hrm.”   
  


It reminds me…   
  


Less stars, now; a narrow strip of night sky framed by faded brick walls. An ugly, white face looms like the moon above me.    
  


“You a man now, Roksana?” The question is punctuated with his fist. “You come here to fuck some bitch?”   
  


I look up at the stars. He punches like a pussy; I don’t even taste blood yet. I just want him to leave. I wonder if this is what a whore feels like, after he pays her to fuck him. For all his big-shot gold chains, he couldn’t afford any women around here. The gentleman's club is very exclusive.    
  


He pulls me off the ground by the lapels of my blazer. “Huh?! Answer me!”   
  


“Fuck off, Vasily,” I sneer. “I’m busy.”   
  


As he pulls back with elbow armed with a clenched fist, the red door in the alleyway suddenly opens. The click and flash of a cigarette lighter announces her; a beautiful woman wearing high-heeled boots which cling to long legs. The fabric of her dress I something I have never seen; it shimmers where it catches the light yet it’s so fine that it ripples like water where it hangs from her bare neck. I think, if it rained, the drops would melt the fabric away from her body like spider’s web. She lights up her cigarette before she casts her gaze upon us, her smoky eyes narrowed. “I told you not to come around here.”   
  


Vasily freezes. His eyes widen and contort between anger and fear. “You!”   
  


The tall woman clicks her tongue and turns his head back to the doorway. “ _ Dmitri! _ ” she barks.   
  


I fall back to the ground as Vasily drops me, grimacing as I watch him flee the alley. Bitch-boy. I have fists, but I know that this ‘Dmitri’ carries a gun. It’s a fight that Vasily cannot win. Still… I spit on the ground and turn my head back to the door. No one comes. She drops down to a tight-kneed crouch as she watches him run and her grin confirms my suspicion that Dmitri was never there at all.

"It suits you," she says, looking me over. 

  
My hair. "Mm," I hum in agreement as I scrape myself off the ground and crawl to the bottom of the steps leading up to the club’s back door. I take a seat and lean against the railing with a quiet groan. It hurts when I stretch my jaw, but at least the swelling won’t last as long as the bruises.   
  


“You bring shit to my door now, Roksana?” she asks me.   
  


“He followed me,” I grouse, taking the burning cigarette from her fingers when she offers it to me. The smoke burns my throat. Cloves. I force it out of my lungs and hand it back with a grunt.   
  


“What do you want, Roksana?” She asks me with a sigh. “You don’t come around here unless there is something you need.”   
  


“Ladislav Biskup.” I say. The sounds feel heavy, like some kind of grim incantation.   
  


She raises her eyebrows with a scoff. “Biskup? He is a client of ours. No class but big money. You should not even know his name.”   
  


“I know,” I wrinkle my nose. “I need the cell phone.”   
  


“A cell phone?” she furrows her brow. “I tried to give you a cell phone; you said no. What makes you want one now?!”   
  


“ _ Biskup’s _ cell phone,” I specify with gritted teeth.   
  


Her bark of laughter is drenched in disbelief. “Why?” she demands. “You want to be a crook, now? Are you sick of sweeping floors? I can  _ get  _ you work. Let me!”   
  


“No.”   
  


She stubs out her cigarette and rises back up on her feet. From where I am sitting, she seems taller than life. “Go home then, Roksana,” she frowns. “I will not sell out my client for your big mystery.”   
  


“Fine.” I turn my gaze back to the stars. It was worth a shot. “I’ll find some other way.”   
  


Her scent lingers even after the door closes. I had thought it was the stars, but it was the smoke. Cloves.    
  


It reminds me…   
  


The cigarette smoke. Blinking hard as I snap out of it, I grip the balcony railing as I try to put pieces of the memory together. Could they really be the same person? I study her over my shoulder. Tall? Yes. She has the same glamorous angles in her cheeks and forehead, but there are other aspects of her face that have changed. Her teeth are too large; they push out her jaw and give her a pout, and dark eyebrows that were once strictly manicured have grown thick again. And those eyes; those godforsaken, red-black eyes… beastly, but... it could be her. What made her like this?   
  


“What is it?” she scowls, growing tired of my staring.   
  


“You look different.” I say.   
  


She raises her eyebrows, taken aback. She watches my expression with something close to suspicion as I turn to face her. When she doesn’t find what she was looking for (Ridicule? Fear?) she lowers her gaze with a frown. “Some disfigurement is to be expected,” she explains gruffly. “It is a small price to pay for freedom.”   
  


“Freedom?” I quirk my eyebrows. “From what?”   
  


She looks away with a sigh and stubs out her cigarette. “Of course you wouldn’t get it.”   
  


I watch as she rises to her feet and steps back inside the apartment. I can see my reflection in the sliding glass door when she shuts it behind her, and I blink stupidly at myself. I can hear quiet, rumbling melodies that fill the nighttime atmosphere but it doesn’t do much to help me think. Freedom from what, exactly?


	9. The Cul de Sac Guard

I could be in school. It would be… what, senior year? It’s hard to keep track. The truant officer has not come for me since I turned sixteen. He never knew how to speak to my parents, anyway. They pretend not to speak English when anyone in uniform is around.   
  


Here in this cove of broken-down apartment buildings tacked onto the end of an immigrant city, I know peace, even when my stomach growls and I feel like shit. I come here, outside, to soak up sunshine and rest my eyes while the world is still close to quiet. No screaming babies, no drunken crowds; not yet. The old ones are at work and the young ones are at school (mostly).   
  


I could be in school.The real question is, do I want to eat? On the outskirts of Little Italy there is food that is almost free; if I sweep floors or stack boxes, they give it to me. No more dumpster diving. See? I learn. No more algebra for me.   
  


The afternoon sun casts a faint glow on everything; from the crumbling steps where I sit, all the way to the heap of trash cans at the end of the street. It catches golden on my hair, only long enough to tickle the tops of my ears and barely hang in front of my eyes. There is a light and rhythmic sound; steady, like a heartbeat. If I lift my head and rake my hair back, I can see. Small black shoes on small socked feet. A little neighbourhood girl. She wears a red dress. There are boxes drawn on the sidewalk in chalk. I don’t know the game, but the skipping is soothing to me.   
  


The road is not much wider than a single lane. When the van rumbles past her and picks up speed, I blink, and she is gone. Like a whiteboard eraser, they take her. I am running; stumbling over my own feet in the chase - my knuckles turn bloody where they scrape between brick and baseball but I don’t let go. I run with it like a baton, blood pounding in my ears. The van swerves up onto the kerb when it makes the turn then takes off with a squeal. By the time I reach the next block, it is gone without a trace. All that is left is a helpless agony.   
  


“ _ Hey, baby! Why are you running?! _ ”   
  


A second later, she collides with me. For the briefest moment, she clings, her hands scrabbling at my threadbare singlet.   
  


I grab her shoulders tightly without thinking; the hand carrying the bat presses against her blouse in a closed fist and stains the white silk with my blood. “Did you see?” I hiss. “Did you  _ see _ ?!”   
  


She is confused and panting even harder than me. Shaking her head, she seems to pull away and stay close at the same time. “Help me,” she gasps.   
  


Everyone needs my help, suddenly. Gritting my teeth, I turn my head to the road from where she came. The thugs who chase her skid to a halt and balk. I hear one of them hiss, “ _ Shit!  _ It’s that bitch!”   


My eyes narrow. I am not in the mood for these three. Mario, Lenkov, and Vasily. Each one a pain in my ass, and all chickenshit. It is no wonder why they were chasing this girl.    
  


“Go home, dogs.” I spit on the ground as I step around her, putting myself between them. “There is no meat for you here.”

Vasily bares his teeth. Behind his shoulder, Lenkov’s eyes go wide as he stares at me and tugs Vasily’s sleeve, pointing to my crotch. “Oh my god!” he guffaws.

I look down. Blood. Fuck! No wonder I felt like shit. I never check that fucking calendar. 

They are all laughing. “What’s the matter, Roksana?” Vasily jeers. “Did someone cut off your dick?!” Lenkov howls.

My features knit into a scowl. With the bat in the crook of my elbow, I unbutton my jeans and pull down my zipper.   
  


"W-what are you doing?" the girl stammers, shrinking back against the brick wall. 

The cotton is old and easy to tear at the hips. I grunt as I pull the remains of my underwear out from between my legs. Ugh. They look like I've taken a shotgun blast to the pussy. The dark, sticky remains of a clot clings to the gusset. I wad the fabric in one fist and brandish the bat in the other, starting towards the three boys. Their sniggering is quick to turn to fear, but I break out into a run before they do.

***

"You are a disgusting girl," she gawks at me. Her voice does not sound particularly disgusted, or angry, or anything. She probably does not know what to think. Her clothes are far too nice for her to be from around here; she doesn't know what it's like.

"Mmh," I grunt dismissively. "I'm hungry." 

"After all that?" 

The puddle of Vasily's vomit lies sour on the pavement a few feet away, next to my discarded panties. I got him in the back of the knees with the baseball bat. It was worth letting the other two get away to do this; he will be afraid of me for a very long time, I think. I hope he remembers the taste of my blood the next time he looks at a woman. 

There is a click as she opens her purse. I watch curiously as she rummages inside. She pulls out something and offers it to me, but it isn't money. "Here." A tampon. 

I take it. I need it. My fingernails are too blunt for the plastic; I tear it with my teeth and then shimmy my jeans off my hips.

"R-right here?" she stammers, looking around. 

"Men piss in the street every day," I tell her gruffly. Still, I face away from her when I squat to push it in. It must be an expensive one, but it's hard to tell if it's gone in easier when I am already so bloody. "Shit, my fucking jeans," I swear, straightening up and spitting on my fingers. I wipe away the mess on my thigh as best I can. I’ll never hear the end of this from my mother, even if I can manage to get the blood stains out. Not likely.

"I can buy you new jeans," she offers, "Food, too, if you need it."

I stare at her as I pull up my zipper. She really is rich. She wears pearl earrings. There is only one person she could be, but this is the first time I have ever seen her. My mother always warns me of the devil-bitch Katarina, who scouts the neighbourhood for young women to groom into whores. This must be her fabled daughter. It was stupid to leave her out in the street without a bodyguard. She is my age, maybe; that would make sense if her mother had her shipped off to some fancy boarding school until now. I don't know much about clothes but even I can tell that her outfit is too old for her face. Her big, brown eyes look at me from behind a veil of dark hair.    
  


“Your mother owns the brothel, yes?” I ask frankly with a tilt of my head.   
  


She shrinks back, hesitating. "I am not trying to recruit you," she explains nervously. Defensive.    
  


“No,” I agree with a chuckle. “I would make a terrible whore. Come, buy me jeans. On the way I can tell you how to hurt a man, even with skinny girl arms.”   
  


She thinks I am mad; I can see it on her face. That is okay. I am mad. I’m angry. I would be lying if I said that I did not want to throw myself into something; anything. Still, she walks with me. “Your name is Roksana?” she asks curiously.   
  


“Mm,” I nod. My smile still doesn’t come, but hers does - just a small twitch on the right side. “And you?” I ask.   
  


She hooks a lock of hair behind her hair. “I’m…”

***   
  


I wake up with a gasp. “Sonya.” I sit upright. I am alone in the bed. Everything is lit in the same dim, blue light as it is every other night. I’m not sure if it has ever been day. I stagger out of the bedroom with my heart still racing. Sonya… Sonya! I had known her for so long. How could I have forgotten?   
  


There is a golden glow coming from cracks around a door on the other side of the apartment. The study. She goes in there sometimes. I take a deep breath and push the door open. "Ss--" The name dies in my throat. The gasp pushes out of me almost painfully. I can feel my chest ache.   
  


“Roksana?” She looks up from the chair where she is reading, but that is not what I see. There, on the wall; a huge, black, archer’s bow. The limbs are plated with something spiny that reminds me of her wings.   
  


Black shapes. A black  _ shaft _ , sticking out of me. “You shot me.” I say.   
  


“Roksana--”   
  


“ _ You shot me! _ ”


	10. Betrayal

She  _ shot _ me! I slam the bathroom door behind me and turn the lock. Leaning back against the wood, my heart pounds in my chest and I can hear my own pulse. I lurch forward to the sink, running the water cold and splashing some on my face. It doesn’t help to make it stop. The visions are heavy and unforgiving; the memories run through my mind without restraint.   
  


The blistered ground. A face like mine; they shot him through the throat. I was not so lucky; the black shaft sticking out of my chest pins me to the rock underneath. I can’t move. It is getting difficult to breathe.   
  


Nothing prepared me for the this feeling. Oh God; oh God, forgive me! My eyes bleary, my voice hoarse from screaming, I can just make out the terrible crunch of gravel underneath boots over the roar of the battlefield that stretches for miles. The footsteps are getting closer. I struggle to sit upwards and am punished by the feeling, the terrible, soul-shaking feeling, of sliding an inch up the arrow shaft before I fall back down, forearm over my eyes hide the tears.   
  


The footsteps stop and even with my eyes covered, I can tell she looms over me. I shift my arms just enough to make her out: a demon; an archer, with her face obscured by a visor. A gurgle rises in my throat like blood from the wound. She leans down. The fingers of her gauntlets curl like insects when she grips the arrow. “Does it hurt?” she asks in a voice so tender that it makes my skin crawl.    
  


No; not so much anymore, and that's what scares me. But I know what she means. I grit my teeth and I nod but that’s not what she wants. The arrow twists and I cry out, hand flying to her wrist, too weak to stop it. 

“ _ YES! _ ” I scream, helpless; angry.

“... Hey.” 

The small muttering, a tiny reply to my agony, jolts me back into the present. I can still hear my own scream echoing in my ears. When I open my eyes I see that the surface of the mirror is flecked with my spit. Gasping, I hunch over and fight the urge to shove my fingers down my throat, as if the vomit could somehow purify me. I rip my singlet instead, letting the cloth slip down my arms and fall to the ground as lean over the bathroom counter and examine my chest. The wound is just another scar now, but I remember. Turning around, my breathing turns shallow as I make out the ragged mark from the exit wound on my back. The scar tissue interrupts the faded blue lines of the tattooed wings. I reach back and paw at the base of my neck with a whimper. I feel like I have lost something, like I am empty. What happened to me?!   
  


“Roksana.” She appears. There was never any need to open the door. It was pointless to lock it.   
  


I flinch and turn back to the mirror, gripping the edge of the sink. Right now I can only bear to face her through the reflection. Sonya. Are we friends, really? I remember arguing… No, please, not another memory...   
  


“You’re in with the Petrovs now?! I had to tell my men not to shoot you on sight!”   
  


She’s cornered me in some alley. I should be angry that I was found so easily, but all I am is annoyed. If I had a man like Dmitri working for me, I’d find people a lot more quickly.   
  


“It is something I need to do,” I sneer, defensive. “Does it make me your enemy?”   
  


“How can I know what you are to me?” she snaps, gesturing wildly with one hand. I can see nearly all of her teeth. “You don’t tell  _ anyone  _ what you are doing! Every day it another thing - you think I don’t keep tabs on you? Are you crazy?!”   
  


“Maybe.” I grouse. “But also busy.”   
  


“Busy?” she coughs, grabbing me by the lapels of my grubby denim jacket. “Busy?! Biskup is  _ dead!  _ His whole crew, dead! _ ” _ _   
  
_

Shit! This is news to me. “Not my problem,” I sniff. “It was not me.”   
  


“Bullshit!”   
  


She thinks I did it!? “Fuck you!”   
  


“Fuck me? Go fuck yourself!”   
  


… Ugh. I hate this. The memories feel queasy, like a fever dream. A hand on my shoulder startles me but the argument still echoes in my head. I steal a glance at her face and it stings. The worst part about it is her eyes hold nothing but pity. I know the expression well. It is the same way that she looked at me on that day. “Don’t touch me,” I say, but the words come out weak.    
  


“Do you really think--” she falters. “If I had known… If I had seen…”   
  


“You shot me,” I repeat. I let my shoulder relax but it is not because my guard is down. I am just hollow, now.   
  


“I did,” she whispers.   
  


It doesn’t give me any satisfaction to hear her admit it. But then…   
  


“I’m sorry.”   
  


I inhale sharply through my nose. It hurts. It hurts to feel anything. Gritting my teeth, I hunch forward again, wanting to expel words that won’t come. When the hand on my shoulder guides me, I want to punch myself for accepting her embrace.   
  


“We all end up on the battlefield sooner or later,” she explains quietly. “The white ones… they show up all the time. And I was so angry…”    
  


Sniffing, I open my eyes a fraction and listen.    
  


“I didn’t know until I touched you… you all looked the same. But up close, when I looked down to pull the arrow out--”   
  


I flinch at the memory.   
  


“--Once I saw your face… you looked exactly like…”   
  


My eyes gain focus as they slide back to the mirror. She looks shell shocked, even as she holds me. With a frown, I straighten my back and look up at her. I swallow before I speak to make sure the question doesn’t waver. “Like what?”   
  


“Like you did on the day that you died.”


	11. Whore

The day I died… I don’t remember much, but of course it must have happened. I remember the sound of breaking glass; the kind that shatters all at once into tiny, blunt pieces. They crumbled down around my boots like snow. It was night, I think. There were stars, just like crystals. The sensation of passing out is easy to recall, but I don’t remember what actually  _ killed  _ me.   
  


Standing together in the bathroom, I grab Sonya above the elbows and hold her at arm's length. “How did I die?” I ask urgently.    
  


“I don’t want to tell you.” She frowns.   
  


“Tell me,” I insist.    
  


“I said  _ no _ ,” she growls, baring her front teeth. She twists away from the grip but I keep hold. “Let go of me!”   
  


I am growing impatient. “Sonya!” I snap, gripping her elbows more tightly.   
  


After a moment, her eyes go wide as she realises I said her name. A small sound escapes her, more breath than voice, so it is hard it hear. Her lips move, twisting with the beginning of a word before they press together and grow still again. She closes her eyes with a furrowed brow. “No,” she finally pushes the word out, taking a deep breath before she speaks more firmly. “I don’t want to tell you.”   
  


The sadness in her expression makes me grit my teeth. With a frustrated snarl, I let go and shove her chest, turning away and storming out of the bathroom. “Fucking… bitch,” I curse under my breath.   
  


Her gob-smacked silence lasts all of three seconds before her temper rises. “What was that?” she calls after me in a warning tone, following me out into the living room.   
  


“I said your mother was a whore!” I round on her, balling my fists.   
  


Scoffing, she wrinkles her nose. “I was a whore too, you know. Or do you only remember my name?”   
  


I flinch. “Don’t--”   
  


“Please. What is it now, Roksana?” she complains, leaning back against the door frame. “Are you angry you don’t get your way, or just too stupid to remember why my family was so rich?”   
  


“Shut up.”

“What, you liked it, didn’t you?” she snaps, clapping a hand over her bare stomach. “That stupid piercing, you remember that before my name!”   
  


“Shut up!” I growl.   
  


She pauses for a moment, mulling the words over in her head before she lets them out. “Are you jealous?” she asks.   
  


Yelling, I have her pinned up against the wall before I realise what I am doing. It is only when my fist is drawn back (like an arrow string) that I freeze. No. I don’t want to hurt her. I want…    
  


Ugh. I haven’t even frightened her. Perhaps this is what she was expecting. She tips her head back against the plaster, looking away with an empty laugh. “You won’t hit me, Roksana,” she says. “You want to fuck me. It is not the same thing.”   
  


My throat feels hot. I lower my fist and clutch it to my chest. “Y-you…” I struggle to get the words out as the heat spreads across my cheeks. A pang of shame, maybe. “How did you…?”   
  


She sighs. “Of all the people who could tell, why wouldn’t it be me? I did not even need to seduce you.”   
  


My skin prickles and my heart sinks, whipping my memories up into a frenzy. It makes me sick to think that what she is saying is true. It’s all true.   
  


I don’t remember exactly when the feelings came. Not on the first day. Sometime between then and that night in the alley, when a crescent of her pale chest shone beneath the collar of some designer-whatever. When we had breakfast together at 3AM and she sipped her orange juice through a straw with bruised and swollen lips. She laughed for me. She held an ice block against my cheek, right there on that sofa. She fed me when I was hungry. She... 

I startle. I’m not sure how long I was staring.   
  


“Sonya,” I say softly. There are so many things I want to say. The worst thing, I think, is that she makes it sound cheap. I don’t feel for her cheaply! How could she think so low of me?   
  


She stares at me for a moment before she winces and averts her eyes. “Do you really want to know?” she asks, hooking a lock of hair behind her ear.   
  


I blink. “What?”   
  


“How you died.”   
  


I never took my eyes off her. When she finally meets my gaze again, she is frowning. Or perhaps ‘frowning’ is not the right word; whatever it is, it is difficult - that much I can see.   
  


“Yes.” I want to know. I deserve to know what happened to me.   
  


She sighs, her eyes darting away again even as she reaches out to take my face in her hands. “Okay,” she says. “Fine.”   
  


My heart skips a beat and for a second, I hope (no) think that she is going to kiss me, but then she presses her forehead to mine.   
  


“W-what are you doing?” I stammer.   
  


“It is fine,” she says again, closing her eyes. I feel her breath against my face. “Just let it happen.”   
  


I remember once, she washed me, just as I had once washed her. In the shower standing just a few feet away, she rinsed the blood from my hair just as I had rinsed vomit from hers. I trust her, and I breathe in. When I do, it feels like my soul is leaving my body. In a way, it’s easier than recalling my own past; this way feels distant and dreamy. It feels like… I hate to say it, but it feels like dying.    
  


Just as I think that I cannot die twice, I open my eyes and find myself in the back of a car with leather seats. Dmitri is driving; I see the back of his shaved head lit on-and-off by passing street lights. Sonya is in the back, alone. I have no body. Even when I glance down and go through the motions to look at my own hands, there is just nothing there. It is a bizarre feeling but I don’t have time to dwell on it because Sonya is moving. 

This car has expensive leather seats but she does not recline them, in fact she barely sits back at all. Her hands, thinner and cleaner than mine (manicured, maybe) drop an object onto her lap and clench anxiously at her knees, making her leather pants creak. I want to take those hands in mine, make it stop, but I can’t. I cry out without sound. What is happening?! Completely mute, I start to tremble, the vision turning blurry.

_ Relax, _ she tells me. I hear it in my head like the word of God and it makes me freeze.  _ Breathe _ .

Hands scoop up the object, a pager, and hold it once again. Once I breathe in, slowly, the rattling stops and sound blooms back into the scene. We are still driving.

“Relax,” says Dmitri. “She is probably just drunk in some alley.”

What an asshole. I don’t drink.

“She doesn’t drink.” The curt reply comes.   
  


Everything I am seeing is what she has seen.

I am in Sonya’s memory.


	12. TV Static

The message on the pager screen reads: PIKUP CRNR 15TH ITALY. She’s checked it maybe ten times now. I remember sending messages like this. I never let her buy me a phone, but if I had known that it was like this, then maybe I would have felt guilty. Still, it’s too late now. Too late to make a difference.

It feels strange to be in Sonya’s memory. I still have my own thoughts and feelings, but to see everything through her eyes is bizarre. There are things Sonya has done that I have no interest in seeing. I already feel...uneasy, at the thought of her seeing me.

“We’re almost there,” says Dmitri.

“I know,” Sonya points out dryly. “I grew up playing in these streets.”

“These streets are too narrow,” Dmitri complains. “There’s nowhere to park.”

The pager beeps. A new message from me: DONT COME.

Oh, no.

“Sonya?! Shit!” Dmitri swears as Sonya scrambles out the car door. He slams on the brakes but it’s too late; Sonya has already tumbled into the street and started running. Her knees are scraped where her dress was too short and she nearly twists her ankle in those stupid shoes, but she'll still get there before the car. It’s faster to cut through the alleys.

Stupid! It was stupid of me. I didn’t want her to see. Sonya… no, please… Don’t you remember those steps instead? We ate apples there! I asked you why you were wearing a scarf in summer and when you said you had hickeys, I said you looked like a a grandmother. I didn’t know, then! You laughed, but did you find it funny? Did I hurt your feelings? D-did--

I try to hold her to the memory but my grip stretches thin and snaps like chewing gum as Sonya keeps running. I can’t stop it now; all I can do is watch it play out.

There was an old electronics store on the corner of 15th. I used to watch the TV screens in the shop window. That’s why I picked the spot for pickup. It looks like an altar, now. Some of the screens are dark and others crackle with static which lights the pavement in a dim, flickering glow. The blue light makes the dark shape slowly spreading across my chest seem almost purple.

“ _ Roksana! _ ”

The scream shakes me. It rings around the street and Dmitri tackles her before she can get to me. She struggles and they both fall to the ground. I take a step back even though I can’t be hit. Sonya grunts as she gets one arm free, wheeling around and striking the man across his face.

“Don’t  _ touch  _ me!”

Dmitri bares his teeth but he takes the blow, even though there is already a welt raising above the line of his beard. He is paid very well. Raising his palms, he backs off and lets Sonya approach my body.

I hear the crunch of crumbled glass as she crouches beside me. Her hand goes to my throat but I can already tell she’s not going to find a pulse. I don’t think Sonya has ever seen a dead body. I can tell that there’s no life left in those blue eyes of mine. Eyes die first; still and glassy. They shot me right in the chest. Bastards. At least I didn’t go out without a fight; my baseball bat is laying beside my head.

Sonya’s vision becomes blurry with tears as she places a palm on my forehead and closes my eyes. With trembling hands, she lifts my fist away from my chest and opens bloody fingers to retrieve the pager from my hand.

_ DONT COME _

“Are you crazy?!” Dmitri pulls at her elbow. “This is crime scene!”

“No, it’s not,” Sonya snaps bitterly, yanking her elbow back with a sniff. “No one calls the cops around here. Call the cleanup crew; I don’t care what it costs.”

“Seriously? She is nobody!”

Sonya’s hand grips mine tightly. The silence should scare Dmitri, if he is smart. After a few moments I hear the faint chirrup of a speed dial as he steps away to make the call.

I watch as the tremor returns to Sonya’s other hand as she pockets the pager, then presses her palm against my chest.

I don’t want to think about what she is feeling, so I focus on all the other things instead. The bullet wound; the stain is huge, but the hole is small. Point-blank range. They must have missed a couple times; it explains the shot-out TV screens. It would have been a small pistol. Size doesn’t matter shit if you get shot through the lung. There’s so much blood. It must have nicked uhh… artery.

If… if they followed me, uh…

Her crying is getting harder to ignore.

“Roksana,” she whimpers.

Sonya. Stupid... I told you not to come.

She falls onto her hip and buries her head in my neck. The world grows dark as she closes her eyes but the sound just gets louder.

“I’m s-orry,” she hiccups.

Wet. It feels wet. “Shut up,” I whisper, shaking my head. I open my eyes in surprise when a quiet sob feels like it is pulling at my breath. I don’t get a chance to look at her; she pulls me to her chest and buries her tear-stained cheeks in my hair.

“I told you not to come,” I croak stupidly.

“You left me,” she whimpers. The sadness in her voice stings.

“I didn’t--” I try to shake my head but she is holding me too tightly. Wriggling away, I put my hands on her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to,” I frown, holding her gaze. “They must have followed me.”

“But from where?”

“Uh…” I want to say a bad part of town, but that wouldn’t help. Every part of that city was rotten, from the slum where I grew up to the glitz of Sonya’s whorehouse club.

She looks at me incredulously. “You still don’t remember?!”

“I am trying!” I growl, rubbing the skin between my eyebrows. “It hurts.”

Sonya grits her teeth and turns his head away. “Disgusting.”

It feels like the floor falls out from under me. Does she mean me?!

“Not you,” she shakes his head quickly, gripping her elbow. “This…  _ ‘holy’ _ .” Wrinkling her nose, she gestures with one hand as she says the word.

“What do you mean?” I ask her, disturbed.

“I died too, Roksana,” she reminds me sternly. “I remember everything. What do you think is the difference between you and me?”

I hesitate. It could be one of a hundred things. The clothes, the drink, the money. I am stronger, but Sonya was always more powerful. Kinder too, I think; at least to me. “Uh…”

Sonya sighs. “When you died,” she asks, “What did you see?”

_ Holy. _

I blink. I have dim memories of a pure, white light; of humming. There was a sound in my head that rose and swelled, changing in pitch like a deep whale song. Like a language, maybe; I hear faint echoes of it, even now. And there were stars. How am I supposed to make any sense of it now?

My first instinct is to laugh. “No,” I say, looking to Sonya with an uncertain smile. “You can’t be saying--” My smile fades as I see the serious look in her hooded eyes and I realise I am surrounded by the black lattice of her wings. “There’s no way.”

“Holy,” she tells me.

No. Not me. Even after death, I killed so many.

“When I shot you, you had white wings."

... Really?


	13. The Holy Din

_ Holy. _

The thought stays with me. How can I be holy?

We went to bed and although the gentle rise and fall of her chest against my cheek is soothing, I don’t sleep. I don’t need to sleep; not really. I don’t think it would make much difference; it would be  _ ‘holy’  _ from the moment I shut my eyes and then as soon as I awoke--

_ Holy _ .

There are whispers that cling to the edges of the word; other voices that I can't quite make out. It’s like a curse. Is this what she meant by the holy being disgusting? How could I hear or see anything when all there is in my head is this wretched---

_ Holy _ .

I swear out loud and Sonya’s chest swells as she takes her waking breath. Shit. I look up at her as she looks down her nose at me.

“It doesn’t stop,” I grit my teeth.

“What does?”

The moment I try to focus on the relentless hammering of ‘ _ holy _ ’ it falls apart into a sloppy composition of shapes and sounds which don’t make sense. I grunt and sit up on the bed. “What do you think?”

She loops an arm behind her head and brings her glossy hair over one shoulder. “It’s better than it used to be.”

“What do you mean?” I squint.

She clicks his tongue at me. “You think I just left you out there on the battlefield? I brought you back here to stop the bleeding. You used to  _ scream _ . That’s why I figured out how to make you sleep.”

I suppose I should be less shocked that I remember nothing. It would explain why the room where she first kept me felt faintly familiar, like a dream. Yet... it doesn’t make sense. I know I wasn’t always here. I  _ remember  _ the market and the men who bought me.

Unless…

The hook in the ceiling. Stupid. She should have used a D-ring.

“I escaped?” It’s not really a question.

“You did,” she chuckles with a tight smile. “It was on a night that I was drinking. You were like an alien to me. I had begun to wonder if you were real or if you were just some kind of suffering I had made without realising.”

This is not the first time she has talked about making things but it still sounds strange to me. Maybe I am just jealous. “I didn’t know you could make things so casually,” I comment, rubbing at the back of my neck.

“I wouldn’t call it casual,” she smiles as she climbs out of the bed and paces towards the bathroom. A green silk robe is bunched around her elbows, patterned with pink and white roses with golden embroidery. She turns to face me and suddenly it is gone; she is corseted in red, wearing heeled boots and tight, black jeans. A string of black diamonds glints around her throat.

I blink. "How did you do that?" She chuckles at my confusion.

“The thing you have to understand about this place,” Sonya says, “Is that you are only as free as you believe. There are souls down in the pit who wear crowns of barbed wire and get beaten every day because that is what they think they deserve. Yet others… well, they carry on with the same kind of debauchery that they always did, and they are happy.”

“The market.” My eyes dart away at the memory. Of course.

“Yes, exactly. In hell, there are infinite ways for the strong to prey upon the weak.”

I scowl. “I am not weak,” I object, jutting out my chin.

“I didn’t say that.” Sonya strides to the edge of the bed. In her boots, she all but towers over me, especially while I am sitting. Her stern face softens into a smile, teasing. “I will say you are an asshole, though. You certainly did not make finding you easy.”

“Hrm.” Grumbling, I duck out from under her gaze and clamber out of the bed. So I escaped from here, then went back out into the wastes with no sound mind or memory. It makes sense that I would have killed the first person who tried to ‘prey’ on me. I have to bite back a chuckle at the thought. Instead, I try hard to change the silk pyjama pants I am wearing. No matter how hard I focus, nothing happens.

“So, why can’t I make things?” I complain.

“That’s easy,” Sonya scoffs. “You still aren’t free.”

_ Holy-holy _ .

“Shit!” I curse. “That is bullshit! I didn’t want this!”

“You did,” Sonya says solemnly. “I’ve met people who chose not be holy. It’s not something you can be forced into being.”

“Then they lied to me,” I blurt with a grimace. Sonya was right; it is disgusting. I never would have chosen  _ ‘holy’  _ if I had known what it would do to me.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sonya sighs. “But there is nothing you can about it now. Just let me clothe you. What is it that you want? Singlet? Jeans?”

I blow air out of the side of my cheek. I don’t want them so badly if Sonya has to give them to me. I'm not some helpless girl anymore. I don't think this body even has periods any more. 

“Don’t be such a baby.” Her height drops a few inches as she faces me. Her boots are gone; leaving bare feet. I get the feeling that she is starting to show off.

“Jeans,” I sulk. "One of those pull-over bras." I don’t feel like covering my tattoos much.

She smiles with her eyes as she hands me the band of stretchy fabric on top of folded denim. It appeared in her hands as quick as blinking. I take them to the edge of the bed to change. The bra presses my breasts down flat, the way I like it. The jeans are faded and ripped; like the pair I used to own, just not as dirty. Pulling up my zipper, I startle as I feel her arms around me.

“You  _ hate  _ being kept, don’t you?” she teases me.

For a moment I am distracted by the feeling of Sonya’s palms upon my chest. After another second I pull away with a frown and colour in my cheeks. “Asshole,” I grumble.

Sonya has never tried to seduce me. Never. We’ve kissed countless times, but that is not the same thing. A kiss can mean a hundred things. Turning to face her, I take a step back, wary. I know what she is capable of.

Her smile becomes a grin. “Are you afraid of me, Roksana?”

The question catches me off-guard. “No,” I snort.

“Really?” She arches an eyebrow. Reaching out, she lifts my chin with her fingers, stretching out my neck.

Her mouth never touches me but I can imagine her tongue running along my exposed throat. Vividly. Swearing, I shrink backwards.

Her smile turns smug. I would tell her to fuck off but she might make a joke. “Shut up,” I say instead, shoving my hands into my pockets. I turn to leave. There is something infuriating about the way she gently grabs my wrists, pulling my hands free of my jeans.

“Let go of me,” I growl, but my words feel empty. I don’t move my feet.

“Stay with me,” she purrs into my ear.

For a moment, I forget to breathe and all thoughts leave me, even  _ ‘holy’ _ .

“Don’t you want to?”

I do, but… I feel two different kinds of heat. One is sweet and intoxicating; the other is like a tight vice. I can hardly bear to look at her when she turns me around to face her. It’s embarrassing. I try to get outraged but the anger just isn’t coming. It’s Sonya. How could I be angry?

“Well?” She steps closer.

I breathe in sharply. “S-shut up,” I fluster. “It’s not so easy for me.”

She emits a single chuckle. “I wonder why?” she drawls. “Ms. Holy; always looking, but never touching. I wonder…” She leans closer with a wicked grin. “Did you ever touch yourself and think of me?”

I choke out a cough and push her away, face burning. 

Her cackling fills the room. “You did!” she shouts gleefully.

Gritting my teeth, I make for the door but she catches me, rolling me with her as she falls back onto the bed. She's grinning from ear to ear and my heart is beating so fast it feels like it might break my ribs. Pushing against her chest, I sit up on her lap and try to climb off but she holds me fast by my hips.

“You bitch!” I hiss. “You’re enjoying this!”

Her long fingers splay and adjust their grip. “No,” she counters with humour in her eyes. “I would enjoy it more if you were undressed.”

“We just  _ got  _ dressed!” I complain uselessly.

“It’s more fun this way.” she sniggers, tilting her head to one side.

“I don’t  _ want  _ it to be--” I falter. No; that’s not what I mean. I just don’t want her to laugh at me.

I’m not going to cry. I’m not a pussy. Still, the feeling takes my voice from me.

Blinking, she stares at me for a moment before she reaches out to cup my cheek. “What is it, Roksana?” she asks, her other hand moving to the small of my back. 

When I don’t answer, she pulls me down to her, wrapping her arms around my waist. “You were always too serious,” she scolds me, nuzzling my ear.

“What choice did I have?” I grimace. “You know how it was. We didn’t all have big, bald bodyguards like Dmitri…"

“You say it like it was such a great thing,” she sighs. “Being watched all the time is not so great.” My eyes widen when her fingers dip below the back of my jeans. Her words are punctuated with slow, soothing kisses to the shell of my ear. “You are not in the streets any more, Roksana," she reminds me. "No more Dmitri; no more Vasily. You don’t need to keep up a reputation with me.”

Her fingers push lower and she grabs a handful of my ass with both hands. A fraction of a laugh escapes me. “H-hey,” I stammer. “Just where are you feeling?”

“Oh?” she smiles, teasing me. “Are you worried I will fuck you there?”

“You can’t fuck anything,” I scoff automatically. She doesn’t have a dick. I wouldn’t let her even if she did.

“Not all clients want to fuck me,“ Sonya chuckles. “I have done a lot of things. With a strap-on, it is easy.”

I hadn’t thought of that. These hooker things, how was I ever supposed to know...

“You’re really so surprised?” She raises her eyebrows, her lips spreading in a smirk. “You want stories?”

“No,” I say quickly. I frown and grip her shoulders. “No stories. I don’t want to hear about them when you're with me.”

I see her mouth open and I am scared of what she might say, so I close my eyes and gag her with a kiss.

“Ah--mm!” It startles her, I think, but she melts into it quickly. When her tongue meets mine she tastes… so good; it is hard to tell if it is a flavour, or a feeling. Threading my fingers through her hair, I grunt and push my chest up against hers as if it will magically make me taller. She still manages to look down on me, even when we are on a bed. I want to be higher. Suddenly, she does it for me, her roaming hands gaining purpose and pushing me up onto my knees. 

Straddling her, my breathing grows heavy when I see the shape of her nipples pushing out against her flimsy bra, the flush in her cheeks. Me; she feels that for me. The gleam of her navel piercing catches my eye but it is the plane of her stomach that is so captivating, the way it slopes down to the hem of lace so low on her hips. I bite my swollen lip as I reach out to touch her but she swats my hand away. Without warning, she grabs me by the hips, hauls me to one side and climbs out from under me.

“Shall we make our own story, Roksana?” she chuckles to me, pulling me in close from behind and nipping at the shell of my ear. “You can be my inmate and I can be  _ politsiya _ ?”

I have to laugh at the way she speaks to me. “Not sexy at all,” I scold her, trying to look over my shoulder.

Fast! I didn’t know any woman or demon could undo a fly so quickly! Her hand is already down the front of my jeans, combing through the hair there and spreading me open. Two fingers dip into me like a honeypot and are gone again before I can even make a noise of complaint. When those slick fingers circle my clit, suddenly I do not care what she calls me. Dumbstruck, I arch back against her with a soundless moan and spread my thighs wider. The stupid elastic is in the way! When black talons rip away the fabric of my underwear, I gasp gratefully. Ha, it is so much different from the day that we met. Better.

Her fingers are moving again. I want to touch her! I want to stroke her like she strokes me. When I reach back to feel for the zipper of her jeans, she stops and squeezes at the mound of my pussy. I freeze. After a moment, I swear I hear the subtle shift of spit between teeth and lip as she grins next to my ear. Her fingers come back to my folds again, slowly.

“Fine,” I grumble, screwing my eyes shut as I throw up my hands in mock surrender. “Just don’t stop touching me.”

She grins again, I think, and my breath hitches when her tongue nearly pushes into my ear. “Lay down,” she tells me, voice husky. “I can make it feel better.”

I do what she says, my heart pounding as she pulls down my jeans and throws them aside. Exposed, I say nothing when her manicured hands push my legs apart wider. I feel more trepidation than before any fight I have ever been in. She’s not embarrassed or anything. How can she do this so calmly?!

“You did this for a living?” I ask in disbelief.

I yelp as she flicks my on the pussy with her index finger. “Bitch,” I mutter half-heartedly.

“You said you did not want to talk about it.” I can hear the smirk dripping from her voice as she rubs her thumb over the smarting flesh. Her breath is warm on my cunt.

“Maybe I forget with your face inside me,” I grouse, panting.

“My whole face, is it now?” she remarks mildly, before extending her tongue and running it generously over my clit.

My eyes widen. It is different to the fingers; I have only ever heard about it. I ball fists in the sheets and try to relax the lower half of my body. “More,” I mutter.

“Hmm?” she hums. Fuck. Her fingers rub up against my pussy lips and then her tongue surrounds me entirely, sucking on my clit like a cock.

“Sonya!” I plead, throwing my head back against the mattress. I let out a wail as the sweetness slips into an ache and then back again. I can’t tell if it’s too much or if I like it like this. I know I don’t want it to stop. Rising shakily on my elbows, I risk a glance at her and my heart skips a beat when I am confronted with her gaze. There is mirth glinting in her eyes behind rogue strands of hair. Even though those eyes are red, the expression is undeniably  _ Sonya _ . It darkens into something hungry as she hooks his hands under my buttocks and pushes my legs up to show my feet to the ceiling.

I hadn’t expected it to be like this. “Let me touch you,” I complain, pushing myself up on my elbows so I can see. “I can’t even kiss you like this.”

“You want my fingers instead?” Her face is shiny and wet when she looks up at me with a raised eyebrow.

I pull a face at the offer. “No.” I don’t like things inside me. Not even Sonya’s fingers. 

“Then you will have to be a good girl and wait,” she tells me matter of factly. 

My eyes go wide. Good girl, is it? My cheeks are burning. No one has ever spoken to me like this. Who would? Nobody. Before I can even think of what to say in retaliation, she dips her head again. I whimper and push my hips forward. Fuck, my clit!

Sonya growls between my legs and grabs me under my hips, dragging me to the edge of the bed. Like this, I am able to sit up, grab her head, find purchase in her dark locks of hair with my fingers. My teeth sink into my lip as I tug at her hair, coaxing her into the rhythms that feel the sweetest. A slow but insistent sucking. Yes.

Sonya moans and pulls back slightly. “Harder,” she croaks, eyes closed.

“What?” I ask breathlessly, confused. She is the one doing things, not me. I wish she would not stop.

“Pull harder,” she tells me, voice ragged. 

My heart skips a beat. I can do that, yes. I adjust my grip, plunging my fingers deep into her silky tresses and then pulling her up hard against my cunt. She moans and redoubles her efforts with her tongue.

“Fuck!” I cry out. It feels good to be doing something with my hands; like I have control again. She seems to like it when I grab behind her neck and all but ride her face. It’s incredible; she’s so beautiful; the angles of her shoulders, the slope of her back, the curve of her ass. The sounds she makes between my legs; the humming, the sucking, the keening whines in her throat -- it all turns me on unbelievably. 

I feel the pull in my groin grow sweeter; more urgent. The rhythmic shifting of her tongue pulls a gasp from me, but no other sound. I’m too good at keeping quiet for such things, and the oblivion makes it easy. My breath catches tight in my throat and my thighs clamp around her ears. I only draw breath again when my orgasm subsides to a faint twitching, cautiously parting my legs as though I may reveal the truth that I have hurt her in some way, but Sonya is fine. Panting, but fine. She licks her lips and I feel a jolt of adrenaline, grabbing her head and yanking her for a kiss before she can fully get rid of the taste of me. Her lips are plump and swollen, just like the ones between my legs. She tastes so good; I kiss her hungrily. She splutters out a laugh when I try to lick her cheeks.

“Stupid,” she chuckles, pushing me away and climbing up onto the mattress with me. “You lick me like mother cat. It is eating pussy, not being.” 

“Let me do it for you,” I insist, my fingers already hooked in the elastic of her panties. I wonder, is she wet down there? Maybe.

Sonya interrupts me with a kiss. “Not tonight,” she coos into my mouth, peppering the ‘no’ with little butterfly kisses. “Another time. You can learn when you are not sleepy.”

It is true that the rush of cumming has already begun to change and make my limbs grow heavy. I pull my fingers away from her hip and reach around to cup her ass, pulling her close against me. I want her close no matter what we are doing. “Fine,” I murmur, kissing her again. “Another night.”

“Come,” she smiles, shifting higher on the bed. I let go and follow her like one who has been hypnotised. If I have, I don’t mind. I even let her beautiful hands guide me to face away from her.

Breathing deeply now; weary but gentle. She kisses the bone of my cheek and lays beside me, settling into the groove of my body and pulling me back against her front. I hear her breath sigh in my ear as she buries her face into the crook of my shoulder. Her long, graceful body curls around me with such warmth. Who needs blankets when you have this? I think to say it but my lips won’t move. No matter. I close my eyes and let sleep take me. 

I’ll remember this feeling forever, I think. 


	14. Into the Light

It's dark. Quiet. I hear radio static, I think. There is something important in my hand but I can’t quite hold onto it. I feel so... sleepy.

The world turns black, like a dying TV screen. The last breath is so easy. I breathe out and I don't breathe back in. I want to close my hand but I don’t think I can, anymore. There is only the sound of the static. Wings, maybe. Footsteps. A kiss to my cheek.

“Thank you.”

Hm? Who would be saying such a thing to me? It can’t be her; the voice is too deep. And strange; kind of like singing. I can’t speak to ask who it is but at the same time, I don’t feel worried. Blind, I feel my sense of self pulled up off the ground and held close. The sensation of moving, once so strongly tied to gravity, begins to get lighter and lighter and I can feel myself drifting away from all things. 

I lose track of time. It is strange not to have a body. What will happen to me now? As I turn around to see where I am, I become aware that I can see at all. I am in a dark void surrounded by distant stars.

Air creeps back into my lungs and it acts like a fuel; I sense movement and use it to turn around more quickly, whirling. There is nothing; just the void, maybe a flash so brief that I can’t be sure of it. I am reminded of light disappearing behind a closing door, but where could the door be? My outstretched fingers (long, white, glowing) touch nothing.

I don’t know where I am.

The realisation comes to me so slowly. Am I dreaming? Am I (my hand moves to my chest) dead?

Thunder.

I lift my head and look around, staring into the spot where I am sure the sound came from. When the rumble happens again it is everywhere; a harmony of voices who sing entirely in pitches and sounds. In the din, one meaning becomes clear:

_ Roksana _ .

I gasp. Am I breathing again? I can see my own hands pressing insistently against my chest but I can’t quite process the sense of touch. Something is missing. Something red.

A skipping sound. It’s the wrong pitch to be a heartbeat, and I don’t feel anything. Running my fingers through my hair, I curl in on myself before a force commands me to uncoil like a rod through my spine. My mouth opens in surprise as the feeling of  _ feeling  _ returns to me.

My closed fist pounds against my chest. The flesh is smooth and unmarked but I was shot there; shot, yes. They shot me. Yet I still feel at peace. Why?

She smiles at me.

A small shape from across the void but she might as well be right in front of me for I can see her face so clearly. It is etched into my memory.

I did it.

I did it, right? My life meant something!

She turns up her palms and holds out her arms to me. Stumbling to run on air, I lurch towards her, full of this feeling. I think I am happy.

Something holds me in one place and I don’t get any closer. Each distant star shines brighter and suddenly I understand that she isn’t really there. How could she be? She didn’t die like me. Still, I can’t stop smiling. My life  _ meant  _ something.

Laughing, I watch as the red of her dress burns so bright that it becomes white and her body disassembles into the series of shapes used to make this message for me. The wordless voices grow louder again and I find it easy to pluck out their meaning.

_ ROK-SA-NA. _

What? What do you want from me? I… I can do it, I think. Yes. I can do anything.

_ LIFT _ .

What?

A sense of  _ down  _ suddenly floods me; a weighty feeling at the back of my head as I become acutely aware of something important waiting for me in the deep. There is nothing but sky and stars beneath my floating feet but the feeling does not change. The task is  _ down _ , and I must lift.

I crouch, spreading out my fingers on an invisible ceiling. The void lurches and the whole world comes into focus, like magnifying glass on a movie screen. It’s amazing; there’s so many places; so much ocean. Tears well in my eyes. In all my life I had never even left the city. One measly city, and here there are mountains; forests, lakes. Vast, orange plains with wildebeest.

And the people! So many; I see their fading faces; their hands reach up to me.

_ PLEASE _ .

I didn’t know so many people believed in being saved.

_ HELP ME _ .

Okay. Yes. Yes!

_ holy _

I wake up with a gasp, covered in a cold sweat. Breathing deeply, I look around the dimly-lit room and a glow in the darkness catches my eye. The end of a cigarette.The profile of her face is highlighted in blue by the moonlight shining through the doorway.

“You smoke indoors now?” I chuckle, reaching out for her. It’s fine, really; there are no smoke detectors here.

She sniffs, and my hand stills. Why is she sad?

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It must be my fault,” she whimpers, looking over her shoulder at me.

I sit up quickly. The bed creaks, and my back feels heavy. I feel the weight when I shift forward onto my hands and knees, and my eyes go wide. I look to Sonya for answers but she says nothing. When I reach out to touch her face, my hand grazes against something soft in my periphery.

Gasping, I clamber off the bed and rush into the bathroom, flicking the light switch.

_ Holy _ .

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Four. Four feathered wings; not white but now a dirty grey. Ha… maybe now, they suit me.

“I didn’t think they would come back,” Sonya appears in the mirror’s reflection, shrinking back against the door frame. Gripping the elbow of the arm that holds her cigarette, her red eyes are shrouded in a veil of disheveled hair. “E-everything was fine, we fell asleep, but then...”

“Holy,” I scoff in disbelief. I can move them, but only clumsily. Trying to fold them back is awkward when one set seems intent on wrapping in front of me. I whirl around the face her. “What does this mean?!”

“I don’t know,” she admits in a whisper, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Why are you crying?” I tilt my head and reach out to her. She winces briefly, then lets me pull her close. She wipes her cheek on my hair.

“I don’t want you to leave me,” she croaks.

“Idiot,” I murmur softly, rubbing her jawline with my cheek. I say this, but I can hear the righteous harmony. It hums at the back of my mind, quickening my pulse yet not in a way that sends me into a panic. It focuses me, makes me serene. I think I might have to leave this place eventually. It is sad but it is true; this is not a place for me. I have a task. I have a purpose. 

_ Holy _ .


	15. Like Mother Like Daughter

I am in the room again.

Not chained or tied, this time; all I had to do was open the door. This mirror is bigger than the one in the bathroom and I need to look at myself.

I am slowly understanding how to move these wings. Stretching them out wide is a good feeling; it creates a gentle breeze which rustles the curtains on the wall. Looking over my shoulder with my back to the mirror, I can still make out the blue lines of my tattoos in the places where they are not obscured by feathers. I guess they do look silly, now; compared to the real thing. These real wings are huge; the largest set is easily the length of my body.

How did she manage to keep me, if I was wild and screaming, with these? Turning my head, I look to the centre of the room, beneath the hook in the ceiling. I think I can recall it, faintly. One wing bent and crumpled, the other flapping hard enough to flip and twist my body on the tiles. The very pulse of my blood burning because the task is  _ up  _ but I cannot fly with a broken wing. The broken voices filling my head with an incessant urgency that no longer makes sense to me. I am trapped, hurt and bleeding, and I don't see who tries to help me. So I  _ scream _ .

Perhaps I remember more than faintly.

Sonya saw me like this, yet still she nursed me. I understand now, why she drinks. I would drink too if I saw this thing.

The click of heels on tiles catches my attention. Stilettos. She’s been on edge ever since I got my wings back.

I glance towards her and my lips twitch with a grimace. Her hair is pulled up high in a ponytail. With the shoes and hair, she looks like her mother; even in a T-shirt and jeans. I keep my stance spread wide and shift my weight to the balls of my feet. Katarina was a fearsome woman and if she loses his temper, I do not like the idea of what those heels could do to me.

“Are you afraid of me now, Sonya?” I question her.

“Just last night, you were the one who was afraid of me,” she scoffs. When she steps closer, I circle around her warily and keep my distance. She clenches her fists and bares her teeth.

“Don’t treat me like that!” she snaps.

“I will,” I say gamely, nodding to her feet before giving her hair a pointed stare. “Because right now you look more like Katarina than Sonya, to me.”

She catches sight of herself in the mirror and startles. Gritting her teeth, all she has to do is shake her head and then her hair falls down around her shoulders in loose curls. She drops in height as her bare feet touch the tiles, then she rises again (just a little) in her leather boots. Block heels. It is a good compromise. I step forward and let her touch me.

“You promise not to start screaming?” she asks, furrowing her brow as she runs her hand along one of the feathered bones.

“No,” I promise. “I don’t hear the voices. Only ‘holy’.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She frowns.

I peer at her. “The voices,” I say again. She must know them.

She emits a little laugh and shakes her head, staring at me with a confused smile.

I don’t know how to describe them. If she had ever heard them, I do not think that I would need to. It doesn’t make sense; she should have been lifted, she should have heard them. “They didn’t come to you, once you were dead?” I ask.

The smile fades from her face and she looks away.

“Sonya,” I say firmly, stepping closer.

“Don’t look at me,” she whispers, shoulders stiff.

I keep my eyes trained on hers, searching for whatever secret they must be hiding. When I grab her by the shoulders, she flinches and the world shifts.

It is different this time; it happens so suddenly. I don’t think she means for me to see this. I can’t move. I'm just an invisible peeping tom, stuck in one place. Like a ghost.

It is a room with thick, plum carpeting and wooden paneling below fancy wallpaper. It could be one of the brothels or her family home; I don’t know. But I do know the woman Sonya is watching apply eyeliner in the mirror of an antique vanity.

Katarina. I have never seen her up close like this. Vasily always said he had a photo of her in a corset, but I never cared to see. Even in her forties, she looks like she could be a movie star. Long legs, good teeth and pointed heels. If she has any wrinkles, her makeup hides it well. Maybe Botox or even plastic surgery. Sonya’s family could afford those things.

She must dye her hair. The dark brown locks have no hint of gray and they fall down perfectly straight from the knot that holds her ponytail into place. She sweeps it aside with a pearl-covered wrist and looks over her shoulder expectantly.

Sonya sighs and stands to help her zip up the back of her black evening dress.

“I want to go out,” she says.

“If you want to play with your bitch, that is fine,” she drawls.

Sonya startles. "I--"

"Please," Katarina scoffs, throwing a look over her shoulder as she twists the eyeliner closed. Her voice is deep and smooth but her words are hardened at the edges. “You think I don't know? If you want to waste time on a mutt, it's no problem. As long as you keep your appointments. But you will take Dmitri with you. The last thing we need is some thug ransoming our family.”

“She’s not… she wouldn’t do that,” Sonya mumbles, looking away.

I huff when I realise she is talking about me. Bitch. I try to keep quiet in case I disrupt the memory.

She turns, eyes narrowing as she reaches out for her daughter. Her red-lacquered fingernails dig into Sonya’s jaw as she pulls her gaze back to her face. “What did I say about keeping eye contact?” She scolds her. “And speak clearly!”

“She’s not. A dog.” Sonya grinds out the words.

“Again,” she sneers.

“She’s not a dog!” Sonya yells, glaring. “Now let go of me!”

“Better.” The sneer fades and Katarina lets go of her, turning back to the vanity to pick up a smouldering cigarette in a long holder from where it leans against a pewter ash tray. “You will still take Dmitri.”

I am knocked out of the memory by the sound of Sonya’s gasping. She falls backwards and I am barely able to catch her. We land on the tiles together, surrounded by my wings.

“W-what did you do!?” she accuses me.

“It wasn’t me!” I snap, but I can’t be so sure. If Sonya did not let me in, I must have done something without knowing. “It wasn’t my fault!” I correct myself with a huff.

She breathes harshly behind grit teeth. “I don’t  _ want _ you to see it, Roksana,” she tells me. “You’re always prying! So how can I believe you now?”

“Because I don’t lie to you,” I growl. “You know me!”

She turns away, pushing on the feathery wall of this cocoon I have made. I grit my teeth and make sure it does not budge. I grab her wrists to make sure she doesn’t just disappear.

“Let go of me!”

“No.” I narrow my eyes, pulling her close. She falls back against my chest. I can’t see her face, but I think right now that is what she prefers. I can still imagine her lips moving as she speaks.

“What do you want from me?” she whimpers.

“Information.” My lips curve with the memory of the word. I press my cheek to her ear. “What happened when you died? Tell me.”

The desperate breath she takes sends a shudder down his spine. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then let’s start at the beginning,” I compromise. I open my wings a fraction and let her lean back on me. Who knew that someone like me would ever try playing ‘therapy’. “What did you do after you found me?”

“I brought you here,” she sniffs.

“No, not that time.” I close my eyes and wrap my arms around her waist. “The time you found me shot in the street.”

“Oh,” she says faintly.

I can feel her breathing become slow and steady to match the pace set by me. The air around us seems to grow soft and I can no longer feel the tiles where I am sitting. “Let me in,” I murmur. 

We breathe in deeply.


	16. A Family's Blessing

I know this mottled wallpaper. Glancing at Sonya’s human form, I make the snide accusation in my mind.

_ You went into my apartment. _

_ Of course I did _ , I hear Sonya’s retort clearly in my head.  _ What did you expect? _

I grunt and let the memory play out. There’s no changing it now. Besides, I was already dead, and Sonya was the one who paid the rent.

“What a shithole,” Dmitri wrinkles his nose as he steps into the small space. He looks back over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow at Sonya. “You said you liked this girl?”

“It is complicated,” comes Sonya’s icy reply as she pushes past her guard. Her boots sound imposing on the old, wooden floorboards. She stops near the edge of an old mattress in the corner. The crumpled blankets still form a hollow shell of the space where I slept. She frowns up at the crucifix nailed into the wall before she turns to take in the rest of the space.

One plastic laundry basket, half-filled with clothes. One cheap, electric heater. One picture of Saint Joseph; the family who lived here before left it glued to the wall. One mini fridge pushed into the kitchen's aclove. There are vegetables inside, and a bottle of vodka shoved into the freezer space at the top. I didn’t use it for drinking; it made good antiseptic without that hospital smell.

One crooked table with a mismatched chair. I bet she never even noticed the yellowed newspaper propping up one of the legs. It was from three days after we first met. I kept it to remind me, even though that kidnapping never did make the news. No one cares about the immigrants in the slums, right? Perhaps the police think that we should all just pray to Joseph instead.

It really is a shithole but it never really bothered me as long as I had food to eat. Sonya could have afforded something much better for me, it is true. She offered many, many times. Each time, I said no. I don’t like to feel kept; not even by her.

Sonya drops to a squat and flips over the mattress with a grunt. There is nothing underneath.

_ As if I would hide anything there,  _ I scoff. So obvious.

_ Maybe. Who knows with you? _

“I found something,” I hear Dmitri calling.

Sonya stands and turns to see him stepping out of the bathroom, flicking water from his hand. “Toilet cistern,” he explains with a grimace, peeling apart the dripping, ziplock bag. I can see the money through the plastic. “It wasn’t hard to find it,” Dmitri comments with a frown, pulling out the wad of bills. “You think drugs, maybe?”

“No,” Sonya sighs. “I gave it to her. Count it.”

Sonya moves to light up a cigarette and stops herself. She pushes past Dmitri, who grumbles and takes the bills out to the kitchen table to count them. She picks up a plastic compact from the dingy bathroom counter with some sense of familiarity. When she opens it, most of the darkest and lightest powder are used up. “Bitch stole my contour,” she scoffs.

_ It was an old one _ , I defend myself, but only weakly.  _ You were going to throw it out. _

“Your what?” Dmitri calls from the other room. He visibly loses count of the money, swears softly and starts all over again. 

“Makeup,” Sonya explains with a grumble, tossing the compact back on the counter.

“She wears makeup?” The bodyguard sounds skeptical. 

“Maybe,” Sonya scowls at the compact with uncertainty. I never wore makeup - not around Sonya, at least.

_ What were you doing with it, anyway? _ She asks me, her memory drifting around mine like two fish swimming in a pond.

_ My jaw _ , I explain vaguely.  _ My forehead, too. It made me look more like a man. The drag queens downtown showed me how. _

_ A  _ man _?! Why? _

I hush her as Dmitri finishes counting the money. “Two thousand,” he announces. “Why didn’t she spend more of it?”

Sonya scowls. “She didn’t spend  _ any  _ of it. But then... how...” She trails off, rubbing her forehead with her fingers.

“Hrm?”

“We had a fight, a few months ago,” Sonya explains reluctantly, hunching her shoulders forward. “She shows up one night with this big, flashy tattoo. It looks like shit, but even so, it should have cost at least a few hundred dollars. She  _ never  _ has that kind of money.”

_ Ah. _ I remember.

_ I was so sure you wasted it. _

I chuckle.  _ You think I waste money now, Sonya? Maybe you don’t know me so well, after all. _

_ Then how did you get that tattoo? _

“She must have paid for it somehow,” Dmitri scoffs. “No one gets tattooed for free.”

“I don’t know. I kicked her out before she could tell me.” Sonya admits with a sigh.

_ You did.  _ I recall.  _ You know, it  _ was _ given to me. _

_ By who?  _ Sonya asks indignantly.

I can feel myself smiling even without a body. The vision of Dmitri slows down to a crawl until he is almost frozen, mid-sentence. Sonya blinks, and the scene changes as we are pulled into a different memory. This one is mine; I hold it dearly. We are in a dark void surrounded by distant stars, and she smiles at me.

_ W-what?  _ Sonya stammers. The girl’s body seems to glow so brightly that she loses shape in some places as he struggles to comprehend what he is seeing.  _ Who is that? Roksana! Where are we? _

I can hear the sound of skipping.  _ Holy _ , I answer without thinking.

She blanches at the word and I have to focus hard to keep the memory stable.  _ You wanted to know why,  _ I say pointedly.

_ This isn’t anywhere! _ She cries out.  _ Where  _ are  _ we?! _

_ Fine,  _ I grunt.

In the gentle hours of the morning, my boots crunch on the pavement and my legs feel as heavy as lead. It is not her fault, though; I just haven’t been sleeping much. Even though she has grown, she weighs hardly anything; she's like a bundle of sticks on my back. Her thin wrists loop around my neck and I hold her up under her knees and try to ignore the bruises on them.

Lifting her head, she points to a old town house not far from where I used to live with my family. I haven’t been back since the day my old man stole my money from working at the grocery, but now isn’t the time to think about that. I let one of her legs go and knock on the door. Will they even still live here? It's been years. I’m sorry I couldn’t find her sooner. If only I had run faster on that day. Still, I hope she understands that I did the best I could.

The man who answers the door is wearing a blue tracksuit, and he has a cigarette clamped between his teeth. Patchy crucifixes are inked on the sides of his neck and there's a single teardrop tattooed on his cheek. He seems confused to see me; even more when he sees who I am carrying.

“ _ Tata _ ,” her small voice pipes up by my ear.

His knees buckle and he grabs onto the doorframe for support. “Nadia,” he whimpers, the cigarette falling from his mouth. He gawks as I set her down on the ground and she runs forwards to wrap her arms around him. No more tattooed tears now; the real things stream down his cheeks as he holds her close.

“Izabella!” he turns and shouts out, voice breaking.  _ “Izabella! _ ”

A woman appears at the top of the stairs and freezes. It takes only a second before she is thundering down the stairs, her bushy hair bouncing behind her. “ _ Nadia! _ ” she screams.

“ _ Mama! _ ” the girls cries out, wriggling away from her father and meeting her mother in a hug. He joins them and the family clings to each other, curled up on the stairs and openly weeping.

I look down for a moment and carefully stub out the cigarette with my toe. I didn’t imagine it would be so intimate; I guess that was naïve of me. I glance back out onto the street and I think about leaving quietly, but he stops me, grabbing me and speaking urgently.

My brow furrows as I try to listen. The language has familiar rhythms but it sounds strange to me. Polish, I think. I don’t know it, but judging by his expression I can get the gist of it. I recognise just one word and it alarms me.

“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head with a frown. Even one word of this language sounds cautious and clumsy on my tongue. “No...  _ policja _ . No anything.”

He’s confused. He looks me up and down for a moment and then his eyes go wide. Shaken, he steps back and nods warily. “No  _ policja, _ ” he agrees.

I follow his gaze and see the blood splattered across the hem of my shirt. Shit. I guess I’ll have to burn it or something. What a waste.

What does he think of me, I wonder? With the wetness still clinging to his eyes it is hard to tell if he is grateful or afraid.

“I had to…” I trail off. There’s no point trying to explain. Maybe he already understands, or perhaps he won't care at all now that he has his little girl back.

The sound of a deep sniff grabs our attention and we look back to the stairs. The woman has calmed down a little, her smiling face streaked with tears.

“Mama,” the girl says in a small, sweet voice. ‘Nadia’ must be her name. We watch as she leans up to her mother’s ear, whispering something secret.

The woman stares into space for a moment, catching her breath. Smiling, she wipes her cheek as she looks at me, then scoots to one side on the step to show her shoulder to me. When she lowers one strap of her yellow sundress, I can make out the top of a tattooed wing.

“Emil,” she says softly, followed by a string of words I don’t know.

His eyes widen, looking between her and me before nodding. He places one hand on my shoulder with a new sense of urgency.

“Please,” he says, gesturing to his wife’s back with an open palm. “Uh…” He uses his hand to pat my back, directing my attention down the short hall. There are no cars in his garage; just a padded table and a bunch of drawings taped to the wall in black ink. A tattoo machine. I think he means to pay me.

“Please.”

The way he says it reminds me of Giorgio, the grocer, pushing bags of apples into my arms after I have swept the floors. People give what they have, I guess. While I never really wanted anything; food is something I need. A tattoo would be a very different thing. Unnecessary, but still; I see the look he gives me. They both look that way at me… and it seems like, to them, it means everything, you know?

I've never had something that was so important before. The only thing that even comes close is Sonya's pager. I take a deep breath. Why not? I will have to ditch this shirt anyway; the bandages underneath, too. He might as well use it to wipe up the ink.

I force a smile even though I don’t feel like it. This moment should be happy.

“Okay.”

I open my eyes and return to the room. Sonya has turned around; on her hands and knees, she stares at me with her mouth hanging open, twitching between a smile and a grimace. “You saved her?” she asks in a whimper. “This whole time, that was what you were doing?”

I take some time before I answer. It is a lot to process. Breathing deeply, I meet her gaze and give a nod. “Yes.”

A weak laugh escapes her and she lifts one hand to push back the hanging locks of her hair. “You fucking martyr,” she whispers. “That’s how you did it. That’s how you got these.” She nods towards the feathery wings on either side of me.

“Maybe,” I shrug. I don’t agree. I could have said ‘no’ to the Holy. Nothing  _ made  _ me. If I had refused the call, would I have become a demon like him, or simply nothing?

“Hey, Roksana…” she murmurs, hunching her shoulders as she looks up at me again. A deep furrow forms in her brow. “That girl, what did you save her from?”

My stare hardens and I turn away. Even without looking, I still find her hand and place mine over hers. When I don’t answer, it is as good as answering. I might as well have just said it, only I don’t think I could make my mouth say the words. Sonya’s frown fades and even her blood-red eyes turn wide and haunted when he figures it out. 

“Shit,” she says weakly.

“Yes,” I nod. “It was all… shit.”


	17. Taskbreaker

I don’t think Sonya understands just how much I have seen.

I could show her, but I don’t think I want to and I doubt she would want to see, either. Or maybe she would scold me and say that she does not need protecting, but I will protect her all the same. What would she really learn from seeing such terrible things, anyway? Probably nothing. Just like she has committed so many scandalous acts with men that I would never care to witness; we do not need to share absolutely everything.

Myself, on the other hand; I learned a lot from the lifting. I thought I had seen it all just because I had lived poor and on the streets, but I had seen nothing. Nothing! People rarely die like they do in the movies; where it is quick and beautiful and all their clothes are clean. The number of people who fade away in bright, white hospitals, surrounded by their family, is far too few.

The rest don’t die so easy. Torn, burnt, blistered, bloody; shitting out their insides, riddled with disease. Run under cars, out of food or maybe even out of sanity. Some are so thin that I can see their bones from the outside; their papery hands reach up to me blindly as flies crawl across their yellowed eyes. There are murders that are worse than famine; bloated, purple corpses with cement on their feet. Faces burnt away by acid or crushed between machinery. Twitching child soldiers, gunned down, their bloodstream still riddled with LSD; seems enough like murder to me.

No matter how they die, they all call to me in a shining hum that makes just one small piece of the celestial harmony. I took their hands and pulled them free of their rotting bodies. I lifted because that was the task given to me.

I have seen a lot of soldiers and civilian casualties. The task led me to battlefields frequently. On the front, in villages and ruined cities. On days with heavy shelling, when there are too many souls to lift, you can see others like me. This is one of those times; their small, white bodies descend all around the crater of the bomb site. I watch for only a moment before I go back to shifting rubble where my task is waiting for me. His name is Fahed, and he was only fifteen. Too many children are dying.

Another angel lands beside me. He does it so quietly that I do not notice until he speaks. “Let me help you, sister. I have his cousin, I think.”

I’ve spoken to other angels from time to time, but it never lasts for long. We are busy, after all. Sometimes I wonder what it is like for them. Are they the same as me? If you led a good life, perhaps you lift less. Maybe. Hunched over a rock, I look up to see his face just as his hand lands on my shoulder.

Hey.

Is this a joke or something?

Blond hair, broad jaw, eye scar. I remember his face so clearly, especially when it was bloody.

Biskup.

I remember when I had him handcuffed to a radiator in the back room of some sleazy dance club. The music thumping through the walls gave good cover. “ _ Biskup! _ ” I laughed. In the high of what I did, everything seemed funny. I think that is called ‘manic’. “Where are those kids, huh? No one is coming, so just tell me.”

I adjust my grip on the baseball bat. I slipped in the back way, so no bouncers stopped me. He’s been drinking, but that black eye is probably helping to sober him up. His designer sunglasses lie broken on the floor. Without them, he looks less like a hotshot with his bleach-blond hair and more like an accountant or something. But even if you take the suit away, he’s still worse than trash to me.

“I don’t know what ‘kids’!” he yells.

Bullshit. I target his ribs because I need his head clear to get information. Shoving the end of bat in as hard as I can, I hear a  _ crack  _ and he screams.

“The girls, Ladislav,” I say, squatting down to get a closer look at him. I use my hand to push against the spot I just rammed and I feel his ribs shift much too easily. They must be broken. His strangled whine changes in pitch when I touch it. He’s like a human instrument.

“Maybe boys, too,” I carry on. “Who knows with men like you. I just want to know where you are keeping them after they are taken.”

He spits on the ground; it comes out pink on the tiles. “No boys,” he growls.

“Just girls, then.” I set down the baseball bat loudly and reach into the back pocket of my jeans. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know!”

This is getting annoying. I don’t like to stay in places like this for too long, you know? Especially not with a big criminal tied up and bleeding. I think he just came here to fuck; the bastard didn’t even have a gun, but who knows if any of his friends are here, too?

“You know,” I say casually, “There are always saying about chemical castration and things on the TV, but I think my idea is more simple.”

His eyes go wide as I flick open the switchblade. I watch as he crosses his legs with a wince. “I didn’t touch them!” he cried, “Not like that!”

“I am not going to cut off your balls, Biskup,” I chuckle. “I do not want your disease. No… there’s something much more easy.”

I put my hand on his forehead and shove it back roughly. “If you cannot  _ see  _ a kid,” I reason aloud, leaning in close, “Then how can you do anything?”

I only have to jam the tip into the soft skin beneath his left eye before the panic takes him.

“No!” He screams, “ _ Please! _ I-I didn’t! I can give you money!  _ Anything _ !”

But I am not interested in money. I press harder and blood begins to weep from the wound. “I have never seen an eyeball outside of a head before,” I grunt with the effort to keep him still. “Maybe it will be interesting.”

His face is flushed and covered with sweat. He starts crying. “You don’t understand!” He weeps. “They’ll kill me! Kill me, if I say anything!”

“Then you are already dead,” I snap, making a shallow slice across the shadow of his eye. “Because if you do not talk, I will kill you tonight, and it will be  _ slow _ .”

I put the tip of the knife back to his face. Not skin this time, but the white of his eyeball. “Last chance.”

“Okay! Okay!”

Biskup.

The worst thing is that he is smiling. That he is happy. I can see the way it puts air in his chest, spreads his face into a grin. 

_ Biskup? _ Seriously? How is he holy?! How is he… I grit my teeth. My hands are shaking.

“It’s you,” he says, beaming as he reaches for my face with his hands.

I knock his hands back when I lift the rock above my head.“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” I growl.

His lips fall slack. Eyes wide. “No--”

I lunge for him but he disappears.

Hey.

My hands close on open air and I no longer hear Fahed. The world has changed. What is this place?

I felt so grounded just a moment ago; now I am in the air, above a kind of battlefield I have never seen before. The task is  _ up _ but I don’t know if I want to do it anymore. Does the world really need me to be some holy ferry when even scum like Ladislav Biskup can make the cut? For just one slip-up to send me here when a piece of shit like that can take up the task...

_ Holy _ . It sounds annoying now; leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hey, holy: go fuck yourself.

It’s hot here. The earth looks scabbed and I can see piles of bodies. What, is this to punish me? Am I supposed to be scared now?

I hear a faint  _ thwoomp  _ and turn just in time to catch the black blur shooting past my face. Archers with black, beetle-like visors and featherless wings. My white form stands out like a sun in the smoky sky; I’m a sitting duck. Swearing, swoop down in a barrel-roll and keep close to the ground, weaving in and out of wreckage.

I look back over my shoulder to see if they are following me and then I nearly collide with another set of white wings around the bend of a rock formation. Another angel. Gasping, he grabs my shoulders with hands that are still wet with blood.

“Help me!” He pleads. “I didn’t mean to do it!  _ Please _ !”

I push him away with a grimace. “Get away from me.” I am done helping. Whose blood is that anyw--

_ thwoomp _

My eyes go wide. I guess it doesn’t matter now. The arrow hit him in the throat. Whirling around, I fall just in time to see another arrow hit him in the same place before the body drops. This guy has good aim; I am in serious trouble. Why am I unarmed?! I always used to have a weapon, and now I have nothing! Piece of shit ‘holy’!

_ Left us. Left us left us  _ lift  _ us Holy _

My head hurts. The harmonies sound like a record is skipping; ancient chants are discordant and buzzing. Dropping to a squat, I grunt and spread my wings wide, launching myself up into the air. I have to get away from here! Find somewhere to--

_ thwoomp _

The arrow lodges in my shoulder and I drop out of the sky with a weak shout. The rock makes for a hard landing and I can barely move my wing. Writhing on the ground with a silent scream, I catch a blurry vision of those dead, glassy eyes looking at me (with MY face is that  _ MY  _ face?!) and it sends a stab of panic through me.

_ I -- YOu -- see -- wE (LIFT) holy -- light RIGHteous HOLY _

This is it; I’m fucked. The fucking haywire mess of musical voices in my head is too loud but the demon must be moving in for the kill. Shit! Fuck! She’s going to kill me! What happens the second time that you die?

_ In iAM a holY -- LfTUS (you) wOrk -- We _

It hurts too much; I can’t see. It’s so loud, it’s the room is spinning, and the sound is warped and it sends a queasy heat through me, like infection, like food poisoning, and she is coming for me. Her face is terrible and black like a beetle and she peels back her shell like it is NOTHING and then her words come so close, so cruel but tenderly, cutting through the din:

_ HOLY! HOLY! _

"Does it hurt?"

  
I shut my eyes and I  _ scream _ .


	18. Everybody Says It

“I always wondered how Biskup made his money, without drugs or guns.”

We are eating breakfast on the balcony, or at least, I think it is breakfast. The way time passes here still feels strange to me. Nevertheless, we are eating. We sit on the ground and share one plate between us. Apples for Sonya, and cold pizza for me. It is good, but the topic of conversation to go with it could be better.

“I poured drinks for him and I had no idea,” Sonya tilts her head at me. “How did you figure it out?”

“I just did,” I answer gruffly, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees.

Sonya narrows her eyes. She can smell my bullshit, I think. She was always good at that. She confirms my thoughts with her next words. “You beat it out of someone,” she accuses.

What can I say? It’s true. I left a trail of black eyes and broken noses in my wake when I was hunting for that name. Sometimes broken fingers and missing teeth. Even now, at the back of my mind, it nags at me: perhaps that’s why I was captured for the slave market so easily. The people here, they make their own suffering. If you think you deserve something, it will happen. Like a taste of my own medicine.

I’ve waited too long to answer; Sonya’s eyes are already smiling and the next bite of her apple has an air of victory. I watch the muscles of her throat move as she swallows. “It’s funny, you know,” she said airily. “I did the same thing.”

That gets my attention. “Dmitri?” I ask, pulling another slice of pizza from the box laying beside us.

“No,” Sonya replies slyly. “Me.”

I watch her for a moment and I see the smirk fade quickly as she dwells on the memory. It must have been something sad or maybe even embarrassing. After the incident with her mother’s bedroom, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to pry. Sonya solves the problem for me.

“He said… something terrible about you, you know. Vasily,” Sonya murmurs, setting down his half-eaten apple with a furrow in his brow.

“Vasily?” I snort. “Piece of shit. He has said all kinds of things.”

“No,” Sonya shakes his head. “This was different.”

Grumbling, I toss my crust back into the pizza box and wipe my hand on my thigh. I can always eat more later, but it is annoying to spend time on shit like this. “What did he say?” I press the matter, already knowing that I don’t want to hear the answer. What else could it be? Dyke, thug, thief? Retard? Pussy? 

“It was almost funny,” Sonya says, but she can’t quite make it to a laugh. It’s difficult to see if it’s humour or pain in her eyes as she lets the piece of apple fall from her hand, back onto the plate. “He was crying,” she scoffs, “He never made me cry. Not even my _mother_ made me cry. Yet he acts like men are so tough… fucking coward.”

Something in the air changes; bitterness, I think. I put down my food, too. It’s not a good time to eat, right now. “Do you want to show me?” I ask.

Her eyes slide towards me and they finally crinkle with a smile. “Do you believe me, Roksana?” she asks, showing just a glimmer of her large teeth. “Do you really want to see?”

“Yes,” I say, unwavering. Of course I want to see. I want to know what she did after I died; what made her so sad and angry; enough to earn these black wings of hers.

She pushes herself up and crawls closer to me. I lean forward gamely, but when our foreheads touch there is still a dragging pause where nothing happens. Cracking my eyes open, I see her steeling herself before she takes my face in her hands quickly, breathing in so long and so hard that it seems to make her grow taller right before my eyes.

I worry a little, but I breathe in and let it happen anyway.

To see Sonya in her human form, in those heels of hers, is really something. She carries herself in a completely different way when she is not afraid; like each pointed toe is the full stop in a death warrant. Her expression says that the stiletto heels have tasted blood and dark red of her lipstick says she has tasted it, too. The whites of her eyes grow wider as she drags the end of my old baseball bat along the floorboards.

It is almost funny; she is terrifying, yes, but looking from the outside, I still think ‘strip tease’. The way she moves has a weight to it; regal, dramatic, like she practiced. It is where she draws her confidence from, I know it. Vasily looks like he is about to piss himself. Sonya has him tied to the chair in the middle of a stark and empty room. Judging by the big mirrors, I’d say it is used by the club as a dance studio. 

“What did you take from me, Vasily?” she asks, and I realise just how angry she is underneath that painted face. I can see the fear in Vasily’s eyes, too; his face goes pale and takes on the same bluish hue as his shaved scalp.

“I didn’t!’ she splutters. “No one’s seen Roksana for a year! Not even at the grocery! Money; they say she has money now…” 

What a rat fink. Sonya’s expression says the same. “The drugs,” she says, nose wrinkled.

“It’s not from me!” Vasily says quickly, trying to lift his shoulders from the ropes that hold him to the chair. “Not my money! I offered her to sell and she told me to eat shit. Fucking ungrateful bit--” the word cuts short as he clenches his teeth, eyeing the way Sonya looks down her nose at her wrist. Her hand lifts the bat to be level with the floor before fingers curl tightly around the grip.

Sonya lets his eyes flick back to Vasily. “Did you kill her, Vasily?”

“Fuck, no!” he spits. “You think I go to jail for that cun--”

Sonya brings the bat up to her shoulder and her other hand joins the grip, silencing him. “You know something,” she accuses, face deadpan. “There is no way Roksana got in with the Petrovs without help.” 

Vasily’s brow furrows. “The Petrovs?” he swears under his breath, the frustration clear on his face. “It wasn’t us! We don’t fuck with the Petrovs! Your mother told us ‘no’!”

“You’re lying!” Sonya barks. 

But he’s not lying; I know how to read a man. And I know that Vasily is too stupid to put up a convincing act, but he’s smart enough to take an order from Katarina when he gets one. 

Sonya is not convinced; the bat connects with his cheek bone with a metallic ring that bounces off the mirrors and sounds louder than it should. I see the hardness in Sonya’s eyes and it seems so unlike her, truly. Has she even hit anyone before? Maybe not; hitting the head isn’t the best when you want information but I keep my thoughts to myself. The skin is split and bleeding and Vasily’s head lolls in a daze. 

“You make connections for her?” Sonya asks abruptly, drawing the bat up again.

It is all Vasily can do to shake his head stupidly, snivelling. He screams when Sonya moves to hit him again but this one is just a feint; she stops right away. 

With a scoff, Sonya reaches out with other hand and runs a manicured nail along the cut she has made. “Bitch-boy,” she sneers. “You think you are so tough? Just tell me what you did before I make you eat another pair of bloody panties.”

This is not a good way to do it. I should have taught her somehow. I should have told her everything, then she would know that Vasily is a coward but he is poor like me and he comes from the same kind of shitty family and hitting him does nothing but remind him why he needs to be a bully. As much as I want to hit him too, I know that he would take a bribe, so, so easily. If Sonya just let him into that fancy club and passed him an envelope and a glass of whiskey… but she is angry, and she doesn’t know how to do this. Not like me. I can see Vasily scraping together his anger even now. His arms are tied; words are all he has.

“You stupid bitch,” Vasily growls. “You want to hit me? Hit me! It won’t bring your dead dyke back!”

Sonya only has the bat in one hand at this point. She rams the handle up into the soft part underneath Vasily’s chin and makes him bite his tongue. He spits up blood, swearing.

“Call her a dyke again,” Sonya dares him, forcing his head back with the bat. “Roksana was ten times better than you will ever be.”

“You think she’s so great,” Vasily sneers, spitting again. “Crazy bitch! And you know what I hear?” He breaks out into the same mean grin from the streets when we were kids, licking his lips as he leans up as best he can. “I hear that she was into _kids_. Did you hear, too?” 

Sonya freezes, eyes wide. The shock just eggs Vasily on.

“Shit, _every_ body is hearing this. Always Roksana, always asking, ‘kids, kids, where can I find kids?’ How’s that for information, huh? Your dyke girlfriend was so sick in the head, she dressed like a man to fuck little girls!”

Vasily is laughing, and he can’t see it, but I can. I can see the way that something inside Sonya cracks and all her choreography is gone, and she is left raw and afraid and angry. And Vasily is hurting her, and she has a bat. It’s just like math; the easy kind from before I dropped out of school. And the answer is a _scream_.

“Maybe the kids shoot her up--” The jaw; the cheek, the jaw again. Left, right, left. Sonya’s screaming mixes in with Vasily’s. The chaos; of course it calls Dmitri, of course the giant man was waiting just outside the door. He would have brought Vasily here for her. He swears and wades into the fray, grabbing the bat with his thick-fingered hands and wrestling it away. Sonya just keeps going with her fists. This she does like Katarina has shown her, surely; fingers curled, the pointed second knuckles straight to the soft hollow of Vasily’s eye socket. Heel of the hand to the nose. Vicious. By the time Dmitri pries Sonya off of him, Vasily’s face is a bloody, puffy mess, blinded in one eye from the swelling. 

“Don’t kill me,” he whimpers, tears carving pink streaks through the blood on his face. “Please! Oh god,” he sobs. 

And Sonya; Sonya is crying too, her tears making black trails from her makeup. Her hands leave smears of Vasily’s blood when she wipes her face. Like some cornered animal, she gives an incoherent scream at the man in the chair before she buries his face in Dmitri’s chest with a wail. I don’t know what happened next; I feel the memory pulling away.

Sonya is still panting when our faces part, as if she has just stepped back from beating Vasily all over again. I see the adrenalin making her muscles flex before her deep breaths make it slowly ebb away. After a while, her red eyes make fleeting contact with mine before they dart away again.

“I guess it… wasn’t so funny…” she says weakly, looking out to the craggy landscape below the balcony.

“He was alive,” I say. It is the most comforting thing I can think of. Sonya is not a killer.

“I know, I know,” she nods in a daze, slowly pushing her hair back from her face. Her shoulders slump where she kneels and I take it as a cue to pull her closer. Her head is heavy on my shoulder.

“I didn’t hear the rumours,” she tells me. “I was so angry. And now, knowing… the girl… how could they think such a thing of you?”

“Because I said I wanted to do it,” I say bluntly. I am not sorry; I am not ashamed. I would do it again. “It was the only way I could get to her, by dressing as a man and telling them this thing. So what if they think I am scum? They think I am scum anyway. There is no difference.”

“No one thinks you are scum, Roksana,” Sonya murmurs.

“Rich girl,” I chuckle, playing with the hair just behind his ear. “You think everyone thinks like you.”

“Well, they should,” she answers back without missing a beat. I have to laugh; it’s funny. Of course she would think like this.

_Holy._

“Hold me,” she demands gently, and I do. I loop my arms around her shoulders and let her make a nest in the crook of my neck, resting my cheek on her hair. The position lets me look out at the horizon and that helps me think.

_HooOOol-yy_.

If Sonya is not a killer, why is she here? If a piece of shit like Biskup can make the cut, what is stopping feathers from growing on Sonya’s wings? Why isn’t she like me?

_My task is eternal and clean._

There’s something she’s not telling me.


End file.
